The annual EURAM conference was held in Glasgow June 21-23 and a number of interesting presentations on project management were given. Best paper awards were sponsored jointly by IPMA and PMI.

European Academy of Management (EURAM) is a learned society founded in 2001 with the aim of advancing the academic discipline of management in Europe. It has members from 49 countries and through its annual conferences, strategic interest groups (SIG), the European Management Review Journal and other initiatives, EURAM provides its members with opportunities to enrich debates over a variety of research management themes and traditions. The annual EURAM conferences are quite big, typically 800 people attend and the activities take place under the umbrella of the 13 different SIGs. A variety of management research areas are thus covered and one of the SIGs is Project Organising, chaired by professors Martina Huemann and Brian Hobbs.

I was attending this conference for the first time and I found the structure of the conference, the quality of the presentations and the dialogue between lecturers and the audience to be of a high standard. Presentations in different topics were given, I can give a few illustrative examples. Project management and innovation, career paths of project managers, proactive project management and early warning signs in projects, the governance and management of project oriented organisations and the interfaces between the temporary and permanent organisation. In addition, I attended a very interesting plenary session for the whole conference on responsible research in business and management. Last but not least. I participated in an entertaining and informative workshop on project management in 2014. I will write a separate blogpost on the outcome of that exercise!

As a representative of IPMA I had one important and joyful obligation; to deliver the best paper prize and be present at the delivery of the best student prize. These prizes are jointly sponsored by IPMA and PMI, a well-established and good collaboration between the two associations. The winner of the best paper prize were Maxim Miterev, Mats Engwall and Anna Jerbrant for their paper Mechanisms of isomorphism in project-based organizations. Carla Messikomer of PMI delivered the best student prize and the winners were Maude Brunet and Monique Aubry for their paper The governance of major public infrastructure projects: The process of translation. Maxim and Maude received the prizes, on behalf of their co-authors. They are both young and the winning papers are a part of their doctoral work. Project management research has a bright future with brilliant scholars such as Maxim and Maude!