Incorporation of user research into a project requires the set up and management of user centered procedures from the very early beginning. Streamlining the process towards the user is part of the user experience methodology.
Setting up innovative research projects requires various skills and activities. In addition to a project idea and to its vision, it is essential to have the knowledge about existing materials, projects, and sources, as well as funding possibilities.
Monitoring research projects (of third parties, consortia, or within CURE) is an important task for an independent research organization such as CURE. Highly regarded within the research community, this role provides insights into many interesting projects and new forms of partnerships. Monitoring activities include quality assessments, workshop moderations, mentoring, and feedback loops.
The duration and quality of the results and findings of research projects cannot be predicted as accurately as the quality of typical industrial projects. A lot of interacting influencing variables exist, which make prediction almost impossible. Therefore, research projects have to be structured, streamlined, and benchmarked even more closely. A clear project scope of work packages, tasks, deliverables and milestones has to be set up. Resources must be allocated, and risks, and their management have to be defined.
Coordinating research projects (e.g. European funded projects with large international consortia) or national initiatives require project- and risk-management skills as well as the skills to deal with the financial aspects of such projects. During a lot of large international projects CURE acquired these skills. Today CURE is one of Austria's most experienced organizations when it comes to the co-ordination of large research projects.