Nowadays, in an environment of globalisation, intense competition and rising research costs, Collaborative Research Projects (CRP) are essential means of sustaining technological growth. Collaborative research activities are increasingly applied across research-based and business-based organizations and are becoming an efficient way to achieve mutual outcomes. However, collaboration engages a broad sample of organizations often differs in culture, in values or project interests. Furthermore, the fact that CRP are being performed in an unclear innovative environment adds extra difficulties to be managed. Uniresearch BV is a firm that coordinates EU Research Projects and has developed its own techniques and methods to manage the execution of Collaborative Research Projects. With the aim to acquire a deeper and explorative insight into the methods and tools used to execute Collaborative Research Projects (CRP); the central research question to this study is: How can the management of the project execution be improved in Collaborative Research Projects? To answer this question several research approaches have been performed in this study. The main research approach adapted was conducting interviews of organizations, managing Collaborative Research Projects. The first part of the interview attempts to find what is considered as Project Management Success in CRP, the second seeks to pinpoint what the methods are used to monitor and control CRP, how do they contribute to achieve PMS, and how do they change across projects. The purpose of the last part is to identify which factors affect Project Management Success. Moreover, two questionnaires are part of the methodology used in this research. One questionnaire has been performed to Uniresearch BV employees in order to obtain a definition of Project Management Success. The other one to the most frequent users of Uniresearch BV web based management tool, with the intention of obtaining a better view of the standard tools used on CRP. This study has identified the usability of the final outcome and accomplishing the main objectives of the project as the main indicators of Project Management Success (PMS) in Collaborative Research Projects. In order to obtain a higher degree of PMS, this study has found two paths: through improving the methods and tools to monitor and control CRP, and identifying the relevant factors that affect the execution of the project and therefore the Project Management Success. Regarding the methods and tools to monitor and control, the findings show that in every project new methods have to be developed and adapted to the project. Consequently the interviewees claim that more integrated, standard and formal procedures are needed. Since they consider that Collaborative Research Projects is uncertain and this connotes a lack of knowledge about accomplishing the defined goals, formality provides more organization, policies and adherence to routine operations. They also agreed that the tools developed should be user friendly. Even though it has been found that the methods and tools used to monitor and control Collaborative Research Projects are not currently used in every kind of project, the findings show that risk management deserves more consideration in complex projects, like Collaborative Research Projects. Looking at the factors influencing the execution of the project, this research has identified that Communication, Trust & Commitment are crucial in achieving Project Management Success. Furthermore, a connection between these two factors has been observed during the research. As a conclusion, improving the level of communication means to improve the degree of trust & commitment between managers and partners. Apart from these two important factors, other factors have been found in this study. The results reflect that the project Set Up including the planning and the responsibilities of the partners must be well defined in order to execute the project in a good order and to ensure Project Management Success. Furthermore, the Partner Selection is another important aspect that has been found; the respondents of the interview consider that is relevant to select a partner with past experience or with proper skills to add to the project. The last factor identified is the managerial skills of the project manager. The respondents found that adequate personnel who apply the methods and tools properly make a difference in achieving Project Management Success. A pattern across the interviewed organizations has been identified. As a result, the differences between groups of projects have been examined over five categories: partner homogeneity, reporting frequency, communication frequency, methods to establish trust and commitment and managerial skills. Although the conclusions extracted from this analysis might not be proved, the differences demonstrated are undeniable. Private Research Projects, managed by private companies, report higher values in all the five categories and therefore it is expected to have better levels of management success. On the other hand, Research EU Projects registered lower level of partner homogeneity, which means higher project complexity but controversially, their methods are more flexible and less explicit. A set of recommendations to Uniresearch BV has been formulated based on the previous conclusions. First the methods currently in use to manage Collaborative Research projects should be further examined. Then, if it is required, the firm should implement more formal methods to establish communication with partners, as communication plans. Moreover, considering the importance of Trust & Commitment, it is essential to ensure explicit and described methods to enhance Trust & Commitment. Another recommendation might be effective when the company participates in the first stages of Collaborative Research Projects. Finally, it is important to describe in detail the tasks and project responsibilities and to choose carefully the partners to be involved. Although this research has its limitations, as the imprecise selection of the interview sample or the lack of detail collecting data, this study has achieved its aim of examining the methods and the influencing factors on the execution of CRP, providing conclusions and recommendations on how the management of CRP can be improved. Further research can be conducted to analyze in a quantitative approach whether the factors are affecting the Project Management success in each type of Collaborative Research Projects. Moreover, it is also suggested to study each type of CRP separately to identify which factors are more relevant in each group.