Project and program decisions in research and development

. This paper describes the application of three comparative procedures for scaling the relative worth of research and development projects. One procedure which assigns a monetary value to each project in units comparable to those used to measure the resources consumed proved to be simple for judges to understand and apply. Its application to sets of projects drawn from two laboratories permits investigating the degree of consensus among subject judges with various organizational affiliations and responsibilities. Significant differences in behavior were observed. Both the methodological and behavioral findings are potentially valuable to researchers and administrators dealing with the R&D function in public and private sectors.