Born and raised in Benin, Professor Lavagnon Ika is not only a world-class scholar in project management (PM) and international development (ID), but he is also one of Africa’s most important intellectual ambassadors on the global stage. He is one of the few African-born scholars who has managed to make a global impact while staying deeply connected to the continent’s development realities, institutional complexities, and future potential.
As the most cited African-born project management scholar and a leader of the global conversation on large-scale projects, infrastructure delivery, and development effectiveness, Professor Ika represents a powerful symbol of what is possible for Africa and embodies what it means to be globally excellent and authentically African. As he wrote in one of his academic papers in 2011, “As a young African, I always wondered how billions of US dollars are spent on ID projects but fail to deliver promised results. It has long seemed to me problematic and even embarrassing that so much of Africa’s PM problems should be studied by non-African, and non-African men in particular.”
Professor Ika is a leading voice in advocating for the decolonization of project management — pushing for greater recognition of local knowledge, indigenous leadership, and regional innovation in how success is defined. Though not always in the spotlight, Professor Ika can help almost every public sector and private sector organization in Africa with the governance and delivery of large-scale projects for impact.
Project Management: A Strategic Asset
Project management is one of the most sought-after careers in the current economy. Companies worldwide depend on successful project managers to tackle complicated projects on time, on budget, to specifications, while delivering much-needed benefits, meeting stakeholder expectations, and sustainability targets. The profession is changing quickly, moving beyond traditional planning and resource management to include strategic thought, stakeholder management, and human behavior competence.
Project management today has challenges of unheralded proportions. Mega-infrastructure projects that span national borders are worth billions of dollars. Digital transformational projects are rapidly transforming industries. Climate adaptation projects demand multi-government, NGO, and private sector partnerships. These kinds of high-complexity projects need leaders who are versed in technicalities and know people, culture drivers, and international development principles. This is not only the case worldwide but also in Africa, which is home to some of the most iconic megaprojects of the 21st century that are shaping the continent’s future.
Academic research into project management has developed alongside such practice issues. Professional degrees are taught in universities, research centres study project failure and success, and scholars produce work that affects worldwide practice. Because of this, researchers are now tasked with creatively bridging the gap between theory and practice. Few African voices have shaped the global conversation on why projects experience cost overruns and benefit shortfalls and what can be done about it as profoundly as Professor Ika.
A Global Academic Leader
Professor Lavagnon Ika embodies this evolution in project management education and research. As Full Professor of Project Management at the Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa, he has built an impressive career spanning two decades. He won a prestigious government scholarship and came to study in Canada in 1998, after he represented his country, Benin, in the African Olympiads of Mathematics four years before. His journey in Canada began with advanced studies at Université du Québec, where he earned his MSc and then his PhD in Project Management through a joint program with McGill, Concordia, and HEC.
Professor Ika’s academic path demonstrates his commitment to excellence. He progressed from replacement professor to assistant and then associate professor at Université du Québec before joining the University of Ottawa. His current role extends beyond traditional teaching responsibilities. He has served as Program Director for the MSc in Management, Faculty Leader for uOttawa partnerships with African Universities, and Founding Director of the Major Projects Observatory.
The Major Projects Observatory represents a significant contribution to the field. This research center examines large-scale projects across various industries and regions, including Africa, where the complexities, uncertainties, and challenges associated with the delivery of large-scale projects loom large. Under Professor Ika’s leadership, the observatory has become a valuable resource for understanding why some major projects succeed while others fail. The center’s work influences both academic research and practical project management approaches.
Building Bridges Across Continents
Professor Ika holds a joint affiliation with the uOttawa School of International Development and Global Studies. This dual appointment reflects his unique position at the intersection of project management and international development. He understands that successful projects in developing countries require different approaches than those in established economies. Professor Ika is a transformational thinker whose work is rewriting the rules of project success, governance, and impact — especially for Africa.
His international experience spans multiple continents. Professor Ika has served as a visiting professor at prestigious institutions worldwide. In France, he worked with Skema Business School and IAE Metz School of Management. He served as adjunct professor at the Swiss Business School. Australia welcomed him at the Swinburne Business School. China hosted him at the Institute of Public Project and Cost Engineering of Tianjin University of Technology and Huazhong University of Science and Technology.
Africa holds special significance in Professor Ika’s academic journey. He has worked extensively across the continent, including holding visiting scholar positions at the African School of Economics in Benin, CESAG Business School and Université Gaston Berger in Senegal, and Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration. His role as an Extraordinary Professor at the Gordon Institute of Business Science and the Graduate School of Technology Management, University of Pretoria, came through the prestigious Andrew Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship in 2022.
Bridging the rigor of academic research with the urgency of real-world application, his contributions are helping Africa reimagine how it plans, delivers, and evaluates the projects that shape its development path. He is not just studying Africa from afar — he is helping to redefine how project management is done in Africa, on Africa’s terms. Ika’s work is best known for challenging one-size-fits-all models of project management that ignore local realities. In his widely cited paper, “Project Management for Development in Africa,” he identified the four traps of donor-driven approaches:
- Imported tools that don’t fit,
- Top-down accountability,
- Neglect of local capacity,
- Cultural blind spots.
His call for contextual, adaptive, and participatory project design has directly influenced how NGOs, development agencies, and government units in Africa are now managing complex projects — from health systems to rural infrastructure.
The World Bank recognized Professor Ika’s expertise by naming him a World Bank Fellow in 2021, though the COVID-19 pandemic suspended this opportunity. His consulting work extends to major international organizations, including Global Affairs Canada, Transport Canada, Justice Canada, and the African Capacity Building Foundation.
Academic Leadership and Service
Professor Ika’s service to the academic community extends far beyond his teaching and research responsibilities. He participates in numerous university boards and committees, including the Senate Council on Graduate Studies, the Center of Academic Leadership, and the Association of Professors of the University of Ottawa. His involvement in ACFAS 2024, the Faculty Teaching and Personnel Committee, and the Faculty Research Committee demonstrates his commitment to institutional excellence.
His expertise makes him a sought-after reviewer and evaluator. Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and Quebec’s research fund FQRSC regularly call upon his expertise. The Project Management Institute (PMI) and MITACS also rely on his judgment for grant competitions.
As a panel review member for Ontario PEQAB (the Postsecondary Education Quality Assessment Board), Professor Ika has assessed programs including Yorkville’s BBA and Northeastern’s MSc in Project Management. He has chaired the quality assurance review of the Arthur Lok Jack Global School of Business at the University of the West Indies. He has served as an external scrutineer for the UCL MSc program in Project and Enterprise Management.
Global Teaching Excellence
Over the past twenty years, Professor Ika has taught project management across all academic levels. His courses span B.Com, MSc, MBA/EMBA, and PhD programs. He delivers instruction in both French and English, reflecting Canada’s bilingual nature and his own multilingual capabilities.
His teaching extends beyond traditional classroom settings. Professor Ika leads project management workshops in organizational contexts and provides consulting services to project managers and senior business leaders. This practical experience enriches his academic work and ensures his research remains relevant to practitioners.
Student supervision represents another crucial aspect of Professor Lavagnon’s academic contribution. He has supervised dozens of graduate students, including dozens of PhD and MSc students. His involvement extends globally, with committee participation spanning Australia, Botswana, France, India, South Africa, Serbia, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago, the UAE, and the UK. In total, he has worked with over 80 students worldwide.
Prolific Research and Publications
Professor Ika’s research output demonstrates remarkable productivity and impact. He has authored approximately 70 papers in peer-reviewed journals and over 30 conference proceedings. His multidisciplinary approach has created publications in diverse academic and professional outlets.
His work appears in top-tier journals including the International Journal of Project Management, Project Management Journal, Organization Studies, and World Development. He has also published in Public Administration and Development, Journal of Development Studies, Development in Practice, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Transportation Research Part A, and European Management Review. Professor Ika provides key frameworks such as managing projects in 3D (rational, political, psychosocial dimensions of project management), concepts such as “grand challenge projects” and theories such as the “Savvy Hand”/ “Fifth Hand”, which stipulates that while projects go wrong in complicated ways that cannot be blamed on just poor planning, they also succeed in expected manners.
The impact of Professor Ika’s research is evident in citation metrics. His work has received over 6,700 citations with an h-index of 34 on Google Scholar. Research Gate shows some 196,000 reads of his publications. One French article in The Conversation about vaccination rollout complexity reached 28,000 reads in just one week.
Editorial Leadership
Professor Ika serves as Associate Editor for the International Journal of Project Management, the highest-ranked journal in his field. He also holds the same position with the Canadian Journal of Development Studies. These roles place him at the center of scholarly discourse in project management and development studies.
His editorial board memberships span multiple prestigious publications. He sits on the Strategic Board of Project Leadership and Society, where he leads a special collection on managing and leading projects in Africa. This three-year venture reflects his ongoing commitment to African development projects.
Professor Ika has edited special issues for various journals, including work on major infrastructure delivery and project management in developing countries for Cadernos EBAPE Brazil. He edited another special issue on why projects fail in Africa for the Journal of African Business.
Awards and Recognition
The project management community has recognized Professor Ika’s contributions through numerous awards. His co-authored book “Managing Fuzzy Projects” won the PMI Book of the Year Award in 2024, one of the field’s most prestigious honors. The book, published by McGraw-Hill in 2023, addresses socio-politically complex projects. He is also a co-editor of the 2025 Cambridge University Handbook of Project Behavior, a landmark collection of chapters from a set of well-regarded authors from around the world, “featuring guidance for anticipating project outcomes and practical advice for dealing with projects when they branch off assigned paths and veer off track”.
The International Project Management Association awarded him the Global Research Award in both 2017 and 2022, along with the Research Contribution of a Young Researcher Award in 2012.
Emerald Publishing recognized his reviewing excellence with the Best Reviewer Award in 2018. His research earned the Outstanding Paper Award in 2017 and the Highly Commended Paper Award in 2011. The PM World Journal honored him with the Editor’s Choice Award in 2021.
Current Impact and Future Directions
Over the last couple of years, Professor Ika has had many impacts on the global project management profession. For example, Professor Ika has provided guidance to the PMI in 2024 on how to reframe project success through a literature review that he authored, synthesizing in plain language 50 years of research, helping shift project success from the iron triangle of time, cost and quality to a broader view emphasizing value, outcomes, stakeholder perceptions, and sustainability, among other things. As well, Professor Ika has provided guidance for the World Bank as an external advisory panel member on their 2023 Results and Performance of the World Bank Group Report. Moreover, he is a sought-after guest/keynote speaker (e.g., Swedish Transport Administration; Norwegian Concept Research Program; Dubai Project Management Forum; PMI Global Series in LA and Kigali).
Professor Ika continues to influence the field through various channels. He regularly provides commentary on major projects in both French and English media. His analysis of the 100-billion-dollar high-speed train project between Quebec City and Toronto, announced in February 2025, demonstrates his role as a public intellectual.
The Nation newspaper in Nigeria recognized him as a leading thought leader in project management and global development in 2023. Favikon ranking named him one of the top 20 Project Managers in Canada in 2025.
His research areas continue to evolve with global challenges. He focuses on project behavior and misbehavior, major infrastructure delivery, and the project management’s role in addressing grand challenges. His work on international development projects and complex project management remains highly relevant as organizations tackle climate change, urbanization, and technological transformation.
Building Tomorrow’s Project Leaders in Africa and Worldwide
Through his leadership at the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management and his work in African institutions, Ika has trained and mentored dozens of scholars and practitioners. His Major Projects Observatory offers a unique space to track, study, and learn from large-scale projects — including those happening in Africa.
Professor Ika represents the evolution of project management from a technical discipline to a strategic capability. His work bridges academic rigor and practical application, connecting developed and developing economies and addressing both current challenges and future opportunities.
Through his research, teaching, and service, Professor Ika shapes how organizations approach complex projects worldwide. His emphasis on behavior, culture, and context provides crucial insights for managing projects across diverse environments. As global challenges become more complex, leaders like Professor Ika help ensure that project management continues to evolve and meet society’s needs.
His journey from a student to an internationally recognized expert demonstrates the power of combining rigorous scholarship with practical engagement.
Professor Lavagnon Ika is not just an academic — he is a visionary reshaping how Africa builds its future and how projects can help make the world a better place. His work reminds us that project success is not just a matter of technical execution, but of deep contextual understanding, political insight, and ethical responsibility. As Africa accelerates its development ambitions through major investments and transformative projects, Ika’s thought leadership provides a compass — ensuring that our projects don’t just deliver outputs, but lasting, inclusive outcomes.
As he continues his work, Professor Ika’s influence will undoubtedly extend to future generations of project managers and researchers who will tackle the complex challenges of tomorrow’s world.
