Purpose – the purpose of the article is to propose a more flexible approach to the
planning of research and development projects, especially for the needs of project calls. In those
calls, financial means are often refused to projects with a high level of uncertainty. The proposal
should support a positive assessment of the most pathbreaking projects and a flexible reaction to
the failure or partial failure of such projects.
Research methodology – In the proposal type 1 and type 2 fuzzy sets are applied. The proposal
will is using case studies.
Findings – the results will modify the way research and development project are planned and
controlled.
Research limitations – the proposal has not been verified in practice, for which many more case
studies and cooperation with financing institutions would be necessary. Also, it does not use up
all the modelling possibilities of uncertainty and dependencies between various uncertain elements of the project plan.
Practical implications – the results might be used in the design of forms used by various financing
institutions (e.g. European Commission or national research funding institutions) in project calls.
Originality/Value – the proposal presents an entirely different way research and development
projects should be planned and described. Type 2 fuzzy sets are used for the description, where
various elements of the project plan (e.g. objectives, methods, tasks) are assigned a possibility
degree (of attainment, of usage etc.)