A fuzzy AHP application in government-sponsored R&D project selection *

Due to the funding scale and complexity of technology, the selection of government sponsored technology development projects can be viewed as a multiple-attribute decision that is normally made by a review committee with experts from academia, industry, and the government. In this paper, we present a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process method and utilize crisp judgment matrix to evaluate subjective expert judgments made by the technical committee of the Industrial Technology Development Program in Taiwan. Our results indicate that the scientific and technological merit is the most important evaluation criterion considered in overall technical committees. We demonstrate how the relative importance of the evaluation criteria changes under various risk environments via simulation. Keywords: Fuzzy analytic hierarchy process; Government sponsored R&D projects; Crisp judgment matrix; Simulation
1. Introduction Technology is viewed as one of the major factors determining the competitiveness of an industry. Private firms may not pursue technology research and development (R&D) projects because: (1) [...]