The Functional Role of the Research Component in Project Activities

The main factor that prompted the authors to write this article was that, having been engaged in practical project activities for many years and developing each subsequent project, we, as members of project teams, had to carry out a certain amount of research work each time. There is a fairly large theoretical and applied body of work of scientists on various aspects of project management, while the study of project research remains beyond the attention of scientists. Therefore, the authors set the goal of determining the prerequisites, place, significance, varieties, functional orientation, novelty of research in project activities. The work used general scientific and special research methods. It is proved that conducting research has become an integral part of design, it ensures the validity, efficiency and quality of project results. The analysis showed that the need to conduct research during the development and implementation of projects is due to the novelty of the problem, each project is started to solve or new conditions for its manifestation. A logical sequence was identified: the problem situation determines the specific goal of the project, the formulation of a number of specific problem-oriented tasks, for the solution of which it is necessary to conduct research, comparisons, and analysis of different orientations and depths, which allow obtaining an atypical result, the implementation of which will lead to the desired changes. It was found that diverse research accompanies all stages of the project; the basic directions and essential characteristics of research at all stages of the project were systematized and a classification of project research was carried out. It was noted that research in project activities has elements of novelty, which can be determined by the novelty of the research elements: object, methods, results, and conclusions. The theoretical significance of the study is that the results obtained by the authors can serve as a starting point for the formation of a theoretical, methodological, and methodological basis for the research component of project activities. The results obtained will also stimulate the study of applied aspects of best practice in project research for their implementation in new projects and increasing the efficiency of project work.