In the context of a clinical trial a PI may be an academic working with grants from NIH or other funding agencies, or may be effectively a contractor for a pharmaceutical company working on testing the safety and efficacy of new medicines.
For small projects the PI is typically the person who conceived of the investigation, but for larger projects the PI may be selected by a team to obtain the best strategic advantage for the project. Before you start a project, define what will bring most value to customers. In the context of USA federal funding from agencies such as the NIH or the NSF, the PI is the person who takes direct responsibility for completion of a funded project, directing the research and reporting directly to the funding agency. There are five key Lean project management principles: Value is the first and the core principle in the Lean management system. As a formal definition of the term lacked, it has been used in various contexts that caused confusion and misunderstanding. It is often used as a synonym for "head of the laboratory" or "research group leader ", not just for a particular study. Project governance has become part of the project management vocabulary. Freebase (0.00 / 0 votes) Rate this definition:Ī principal investigator is the lead scientist or engineer for a particular well-defined science project, such as a laboratory study or clinical trial. The principal-agent model definition stems from Black's Law Dictionary of 1999, it defines a principal as someone authorizing a person to act on their behalf. At a glance: Principles successful project managers should follow.