**3. Other categories/types of sustainability in research project management**

The other categories or types of sustainability exemplified in the research project management and development literature vary significantly, but share some similar underlying characteristics with one another. For this reason, and in order not to sound repetitive, I focus on two other types of sustainability (i.e. aside financial sustainability) namely: institutional or organizational sustainability and

#### *Addressing Sustainability Planning in Higher Education Research DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.93589*

programmatic sustainability [6, 10, 13, 14] to drive home the argument of the chapter that there are different aspects of sustainability that are to be considered while writing the sustainability plan, particularly for research project proposals seeking to elicit funding from donors for project activities.2

Succinctly defined, institutional or organizational sustainability refers to ways of ensuring proper working of the organization and its institutions that were developed as part of the project even after the period of funding elapses, [6, 13, 15, 16], whereas programmatic sustainability means to continue the organization or project's programme of deliverables in the absence of donor support [10, 14, 17].

So clearly, both of these definitions show that aside finances, project proposals (especially those seeking for funding from donors) ought to demonstrate how project teams and the organizations and/or institutions they represent as well as project activities and programmes would continue to exist and deliver required impacts even after primary funding from donors recede or dry out completely. The argument this chapter presents essentially is that the combination of these three categories/types of sustainability (i.e. financial, organizational or institutional and programmatic sustainability) builds a comprehensive suite of support services and materials for research project teams that wish to undertake sustainability to effect lasting project impacts and benefits on their beneficiary constituencies.

Although from a glance organizational/institutional and programmatic categories of sustainability may appear quite similar in terms of the focus on ensuring the continued existence of the project team (and the organizations and/or institutions from which the team is formed) as well as their programmes and activities, their approaches to planning sustainability differ markedly. In the case of institutional and/or organizational sustainability, the following are examples of the methods that can or are most often employed to demonstrate its sustainability in research project proposals:


<sup>2</sup> So clearly, the focus of this chapter is on sustainability planning for research project proposals development in higher education research to convince donors to fund project activities, and not necessarily on sustainability planning for project management per se.


Programmatic sustainability, on the other hand, is ensured through a different set of activities including, but not limited to:


So clearly, although organizations (including research project teams) need financial muscle to move their activities and programmes ahead, as is being echoed here by the chapter, none of the three categories of sustainability (i.e. financial, organizational or institutional and programmatic sustainability) exemplified takes or should take pre-eminence over the other as far as project proposals seeking funds from donors are concerned. Rather, it is the combination of all three that builds a comprehensive suite of support services and materials for project teams that wish to undertake sustainability to effect lasting project impacts and benefits on their beneficiary constituencies.
