Congratulations to Dr Carolina M. Zani, a doctoral graduate from the Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, who has been awarded the Association for Project Management (APM) Doctorate of the Year and the Highly Commended Societal Impact awards.

Dr Zani’s thesis, The dynamics of organisation design in megaprojects: A multi-dimensional capability approach, addresses a central question in project management: how to design megaproject organisations. It advances project management theory by combining organisational design with complementary perspectives, systematically grounding design decisions in key management lenses. 

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.

The research is based on a three-year longitudinal case study with High Speed Two (HS2 Ltd) and reveals the power of organisational design to improve the management of megaprojects. It was developed at the Megaproject Delivery Centre and supervised by Professor Juliano Denicol and Professor Tim Broyd. 
 

 

I am deeply honoured to receive the APM Doctorate of the Year and the Highly Commended Societal Impact awards. This recognition reflects not only my work, but also the invaluable support of my supervisors, industry partners and the striving environment that is the Megaproject Delivery Centre. Megaprojects shape economies and communities, and improving how they are organised can lead to more effective, accountable, and sustainable infrastructure delivery worldwide.”

– Dr Carolina Zani

Global Impact 

The findings have shaped conversations with policymakers and major stakeholders around the world, including the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and has attracted international industry recognition through engagement with AECOM and a new collaboration with Société des Grands Projets, the organisation responsible for delivering the Grand Paris Express.

The visibility of Dr Zani’s thesis spans both academia and practice: it has been featured in leading journals such as the International Journal of Project Management and Project Management Journal, and presented at major conferences including the Academy of Management, European Academy of Management, and the European Group for Organizational Studies.

Dr Zani’s paper, Organisation Design in Megaprojects: A Systematic Literature Review and Research Agenda, received the APM Research Paper of the Year Award (2025). It is the largest literature review to date on organisational design in megaprojects, it analysed over 10,000 publications, and identified eight key decision dimensions alongside core organisational capabilities.

Another of Dr Zani’s papers, The Four Coordination Roles of Clients When Designing Megaproject Organizations was published in Project Management Journal. This prompted an invitation from the Project Management Institute to produce a practitioner piece for PMI’s website, which reinforced the work’s practical relevance in the advancement of project management practice.

In addition to this, Dr Zani’s paper that was presented at Academy of Management (AoM) 2025 was ranked in the top 10% Best Paper of the Operations and Supply Chain Management (OSCM) Division. It is rare for a project management paper to recognised in mainstream management, and at an event that drew over 13,000 participants.
 

 

At UCL’s Megaproject Delivery Centre, we are very proud to see Carolina receiving the well-deserved recognition for her talent and intellectual ambition. Winning the PhD of the Year by the Association for Project Management is a powerful recognition of the originality, rigour, and impact of the research. Carolina’s work represents exceptional scholarship, advancing knowledge in a critical area affecting megaprojects around the world, while actively engaging with senior executives to deliver meaningful change across industry and society. The Highly Commended Societal Impact Award recognises the significant potential of her thesis to improve the way critical infrastructure is delivered.” 

- Professor Juliano Denicol

Links to papers 

Further information 

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