Author : Braunschweig, Thomas; Janssen, Willem; Muñoz, Carlos; Rieder, Peter

Summary : This chapter reports on a priority setting exercise for biotechnology research projects in Chile. The primary objective of the exercise was to test a conceptual framework that can provide a list of prioritized biotechnology projects. The methodology applied is the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), a multicriteria decision-making approach that uses pairwise comparisons to determine preferences among a set of projects. AHP systematically structures a complex decision problem and analyzes only two elements at a time. The approach incorporates subjective judgements and combines them with hard data. It (1) decomposes an unstructured decision problem into a hierarchy, (2) makes a preference ranking among pairs of alternatives by making comparative judgements, and (3) synthesizes these judgements into the priority ranking of the projects. It is well-suited for group decision making and it is supported by a software package.