| Project Management Doctorate of the Year

This award recognises an excellent doctoral thesis in a project management related subject. Professional doctorates are also eligible in this category.

The doctorate must have been awarded in the academic year 2024/2025 (if you are unsure if you qualify in this academic time frame please contact awards@apm.org.uk for clarification before applying, giving details about your academic years/graduation date/university and course). A doctoral thesis may only be entered into this category once. Entrants can be members or non-members of APM, from both in and outside of the UK.

Entries should take the form of a 1,000-word personal statement OR an 8-minute video (in English), addressing the criteria below. The entry must be accompanied by the full thesis as a PDF document and a supporting letter from the entrant’s supervisor and/or external examiner including confirmation that the doctorate has been awarded (please note copies of grades or certificates will not be accepted).

View the winner 

Congratulations to our winner...

Judges comments
The judges praised Carolina’s substantial and well-grounded study that addresses one of the most critical aspects of megaproject delivery: organisational design. Its contribution to both megaproject scholarship and public infrastructure practice is significant, offering insights that can inform senior decision makers and policymakers alike. Judges commented that the impact trajectory of Carolina’s work is remarkable, so too was its methodological rigor, scope of data collection, and the sophistication of its theoretical contributions. 

Carolina Zani completed her PhD in 2025 at The Bartlett (number one globally for Architecture and Built Environment) at University College London (top ten university worldwide). Her doctoral thesis is titled “The dynamics of organisation design in megaprojects: A multi-dimensional capability approach”.

The thesis addresses a central question in project management: how to design megaproject organisations. Contributions are organised into themes supported by different theoretical lenses: (1) organisational capabilities (building blocks for organisational design), (2) integration of structure and coordination, (3) organisational design efficiency (cost perspective), (4) political and institutional context and influence in megaproject organisations.

My doctorate explores how leaders actually get complex projects delivered under pressure. Drawing on two in-depth case studies, the research introduces the SALT (Success, Adaptive Leadership and Trust) model, showing how different types of trust are required to navigate technical, process and stakeholder complexity, and how these shape perceptions of success.

The work reframes project success to include contentedness alongside time, cost and quality, offering a practical, human-centred lens for modern project leadership. SALT is already being applied in large, high-stakes technology and public sector programmes to promote more sustainable delivery.

Dr Joseph Watton is nominated for APM Project Management Doctorate of the Year 2026 for his thesis, “Cost reduction and benchmarking practice in complex infrastructure decommissioning projects”. His thesis reveals the everyday practices that are fundamental in achieving cost reduction and conducting benchmarking.

To reduce cost, practitioners must foster cultures of collaboration and opportunity management, prioritising reduction of complexity and time. To improve benchmarking, practitioners should develop in-house expertise and/or outsource, facilitate working groups, and increase flexibility in what can be benchmarked. On top of dissemination in industry events and online presentations, findings are being actively applied in projects.