Dr. Ralf Müller is Professor of Project Management at BI Norwegian Business School and their former Associate Dean for the BI-Fudan MBA programs in China. He holds adjunct professor appointments at Dalian University of Technology in China, and University of Technology Sydney. Governance roles he fullfills include member of the Senate at ISM University, Lithuania, Chair of the Advisory Board of the International Association of Project Management Officers, Board member of the Institute for Project Management at the University of Iceland, and Director of the Research Lab at the Europen School of Governance.
His research takes an organization-wide perspective. Since 2003 he has received a number of research grants from institutions like the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), the Project Management Institute (PMI) in the US and the Norwegian Center of Project Management. These studies addressed governance, leadership, and project management offices related topics and research-informed standards. Many of these studies were acknowledged through global research and lifetime achievement awards. The results of his research appeared in more than 250 publications. He is frequent speaker at global research conferences such as IRNOP (International Research Network for Organizing by Projects) and the European Academy of Management Conference, as well as practitioner conferences, such as those of NASA, PMI and IPMA.
Among the awards he received are the 2019 IPMA Global Research Award, 2019 Walt Lipke Award for Project Governance Excellence, 2019 Antura Lifetime Achievement Award, 2016 PMI Fellow of the Institute Award, the 2015 PMI Research (lifetime) Achievement Award, the 2012 IPMA Research Award, the 2009 Best Paper Award by the Project Management Journal, the 2011 Emerald Publishing Best Reviewer Award, and the 2011 AACSB Best Paper in Operations Management Award of the Academy of Business Research Conference, the 2010 Emerald Outstanding Paper Award, the 2010 Highly Commended Award Winner of the Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence, the IRNOP 2009 Best Conference Paper Award, the Emerald 2009 Outstanding Reviewer Award. Furthermore the Nimbas University 2005 Best Supervisor Award. His doctoral thesis was ranked by EDAMBA among the top eight best doctoral theses in business and management in 2003.
In the past, he was Professor of Business Administration at Umeå University, Sweden. Prior to joining the academic world, he spent 25 years in the industry. There he worked in 50+ different countries for the improvement of project management in large organizations and governments. He managed global IT projects and consulting organizations, for example, as worldwide Director of Project Management at NCR Teradata. Projects he worked on span from small up to US$ 4.7 billion. In these projects he worked closely with AT&T and Bell Laboratories, USA.
Ralf Müller received his Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) from Henley Management College / Brunel University, UK, and his MBA from Herriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, UK. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Project Management Journal and a member of the Editorial Review Board of several other academic journals, member of the Academy of Management, Project Management Institute (PMI), and the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. He is a co-founder of PMI’s first European Chapter in Frankfurt, Germany and co-founder of the Munich Chapter. He contributed to the PMI Standards for Organizational Project Management Maturity (OPM3), as well as Program and Portfolio Management.
Teaching areas
Ralf Müller lectures on leadership, organizational project management, project governance, program and portfolio management.
In addition he lectures research philosophy and design, research methodologies, case study research, as well as qualitative and quantitative analysis techniques at doctoral and Master level all over the World..