The secret to boosting research productivity, managing workloads and responding to changing circumstances is to harness project management tools in the academic environment. With academics increasingly being asked to perform all of these feats at once, this book could not come soon enough. It sets out the basics of project management as a practical, step-by-step process for integrating the demands of research projects into the working life of today's academics.

This book's central premise is that as a research academic you are already a project manager whether or not you identify as such, by virtue of the particular professional demands made of you. It explains how to take a structured approach to delivering research by determining your goals, defining their success and fully embracing the planning process. With a well-planned, well-managed project under your belt, it also explains the best ways of concluding and delivering a project, including how to guide your team through the invaluable review process to make sure that your next project is managed even more successfully.

By understanding that you are a project manager and exactly what tasks and responsibilities this involves, you will be able not only to improve your output, manage your workload and expand your prospects, but use your unique experience and skills to further develop in the role itself.

Robert Mark Ewers is Professor of Ecology at Imperial College London, UK.