Research & Development
Your research project spans years. Can your project plan handle that?
Research and development projects stretch over years, involve changing teams and must be reported to funding bodies. Merlin Project models exactly this reality.
Research project managers know this
Challenges in research, development and scientific projects
Timelines Spanning Years
Your project plan runs for many years. Most tools are built for sprints, not decade-long plans. Zoom levels, calendars and timelines hit their limits.
Milestones for Funding Bodies
DFG, EU or industry partners demand milestone reports. You need a plan that cleanly maps milestones, deliverables and reporting periods.
Changing Team Composition
PhD students come and go, postdocs switch projects. Resource planning over multiple years with changing personnel is a nightmare in spreadsheets.
Parallel Work Packages
Work Package 3 depends on WP1 and WP2 running in parallel. If one is delayed, downstream packages shift. But which ones exactly?
Merlin Project for research
Multi-Year Timelines With Ease
Merlin Project scales effortlessly from weeks to years. Zoom from the day view to the year overview and back. Projects with 1,000+ tasks stay smooth: native on the Mac, not in a browser.
Milestones and Reporting Periods
Define milestones with due dates and attach deliverables as file attachments. Export schedules as print-ready PDFs for project sponsors and reviewers.
Flexible Resource Planning
Assign team members for limited time periods. If a PhD student becomes available in Q3, plan exactly that. Merlin Project shows overallocation and free capacity at a glance.
Publications and Conferences in Parallel
Research is never linear. Paper in revision, grant proposal in preparation, interim report due, conference deadline next month: all at the same time. Merlin Project maps this second project axis cleanly. Publications and conference contributions live as their own tasks with deadlines, without disrupting the main research plan.
Features for research projects
Gantt Across Years
Scalable timeline from days to decades, with no performance degradation.
Milestones
Clearly define deadlines and deliverables for funding bodies.
Resource Management
Map changing personnel with time-limited availability.
Attachments
Attach papers, reports and data directly to work packages.
PDF Export
Print-ready project plans for reviewers and sponsors.
Data Privacy
Data stays on your machine. No cloud required, GDPR-compliant.
MS Project & CSV
Exchange with funding bodies, industry partners and consortium leads, without conversion tools.
Work Package Structure
WP hierarchy with cross-dependencies, matching DFG, BMBF and EU proposals.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I map a classic DFG or Horizon Europe work package structure?
As a hierarchical work breakdown with Work Packages (WP1, WP2, …), their deliverables (D1.1, D1.2, …) and milestones. Cross-dependencies between WPs are modeled cleanly. If a WP slips, you immediately see which downstream WPs are affected. You stay ready for the next interim report.
Is my research data stored in a GDPR- and ethics-compliant way?
Yes. Project data stays on your Mac, iPad or in your own cloud storage. ProjectWizards never sees the contents. This satisfies GDPR requirements without an additional data processing agreement. That matters for personal research data (medical, psychological) and ethics committee constraints.
Can Merlin Project handle 1,000+ tasks over multiple years?
Yes. Native Mac app, no browser limits. Decade-long plans with over 1,000 tasks run smoothly, including zoom from year view down to day level. Where SaaS tools slow to a crawl at 500 tasks, Merlin Project is just getting warmed up.
How do I model changing PhD and postdoc availability?
Every resource gets time-limited assignment windows, for example "PhD student X available Q3/2025 to Q2/2028" or "Postdoc Y 50% from April". The workload view shows bottlenecks and idle time across the full project lifetime.
How do I produce milestone reports for DFG, BMBF or EU?
Export the plan as a print-ready PDF with milestones, deliverables and progress indicators, or as an MS Project file for funding bodies and consortium leads. Deliverable documents attach to the milestone itself and are exported alongside.
