Project Management Institute Celebrates Project Ingenuity and Fortitude with 2020 Most Influential Projects Lists

Project Management Institute (PMI) today announced the top 50 influential projects of the past 18 months on its annual list of Most Influential Projects. Most Influential Projects highlights compelling projects around the world and across industries that achieved significant milestones and impacted our society. This year’s list follows PMI’s inaugural list released last year in honor of PMI’s 50^th anniversary that showcased the 50 most amazing feats that projects have made possible over the previous five decades.

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The 2020 edition of the Most Influential Projects reflects how project professionals have found ingenious ways to keep initiatives moving forward in the face of unexpected obstacles associated with the global pandemic. In light of unprecedented challenges both business and society faced this year, some of the top-ranked projects include pandemic-related projects such as Iceland Contact Tracing, Learning Passport, and the U.S. Digital Response Launch. In addition to the main Top 50 list, PMI released 30 lists recognizing the Top 10 most influential projects in a variety of regions and industries. In total, the lists include more than 250 breakthrough efforts, highlighting progress made in long-standing innovative projects in transportation, renewable energy, architecture, technology, and more.

“We live in a world of change and uncertainty - and COVID-19 has accelerated these trends with major shocks and disruptions to the world of business and society itself overnight,” said Sunil Prashara, President and CEO of Project Management Institute. “Our 2020 list of Most Influential Projects should give us hope that we can meet these challenges and make even the boldest ideas into reality. Against the most challenging of circumstances over the past year, the leaders and teams behind these innovative projects made hard decisions and challenged conventional thinking in order to make an impact. As we rebuild and move forward from these challenging times, it is going to take the creativity, collaboration, discipline, and determination exhibited in each of these projects to reimagine a better path forward.”

The project management community itself—including experts, volunteers, academics, and industry leaders from across the globe—provided input and recommendations for this year’s list. The pool of project candidates, which numbered in the thousands, was then vetted by a special PMI thought leadership team. The final list represents PMI’s vision of how project work and the change makers behind them represent the creative spirit shaping how the world collectively reimagines a new future, makes ideas and dreams reality, and as a result change the world.

Honorees include momentous triumphs such as building temporary hospitals in a matter of days, developing ventilators at rapid speed, and reimagining annual events for a digital world; in addition to highly impactful, but lesser-known victories such as Kangaroo Island Recovery in Australia and Dogger Bank Wind Farm in England’s North Sea. The top-ranked project is the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, a giant, global initiative tasked with identifying, accelerating and scaling potential COVID-19 treatments by coordinating research and development.

To view the complete list of projects and industry- and region-specific “Top 10” lists, visit pmi.org/most-influential-projects. The list is also featured in a special edition of the award-winning PM Network^® magazine.

The Top 50 Most Influential Projects*

1. COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator –For letting the science lead the funding on potential COVID-19 treatments
2. Iceland Contact Tracing – For halting COVID-19’s spread—and demonstrating an alternative to lockdown for the rest of the world
3. Learning Passport – For disrupting virtual education models to help underprivileged kids shut out of classrooms
4. COVID-19 Data Lake –For collecting—and organizing—a deluge of virus insights
5. Wolfsburg Plant Reopening – For creating a COVID-era reentry roadmap
6. AZD1222 SARS-CoV-2 – For blazing a trail in the pursuit of a COVID-19 vaccine
7. Tokyo 2020^® Olympic Games – For showing how to press pause on a major event
8. U.S. Digital Response Launch – For mobilizing tech talent to help local governments solve problems
9. Nightingale Hospital London – For creating a COVID-19 emergency care center in just nine days
10. Shanghai Fashion Week™ – For proving that even during a global pandemic, the show (and the sales) must go on
11. Kangaroo Island Recovery – For responding to epic wildfires—and rescuing an Australian ecosystem
12. Tesla™ Gigafactory Shanghai – For setting up the first foreign-owned auto factory in China at warp speed
13. UpLink™ – For creating a practical platform to achieve the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals
14. Trolls World Tour™– For rethinking movie distribution—delighting families and disrupting Hollywood
15. Power of Siberia – For pumping new energy into the natural gas industry while forging superpower polar bonds
16. Disney+™ – For magically carving out a place in the world of streaming
17. Solar Orbiter – For offering a new view of the sun
18. Hudson Yards^® – For rethinking the mixed-use urban neighborhood in one of the world’s largest cities
19. Curie – For improving bandwidth in South America
20. Dangote Refinery – For fueling Nigeria’s economic transformation from importer to self-sustaining powerhouse
21. Locust Impact Tool Kit – For using data to protect threatened food supplies in East Africa and beyond
22. Galaxy Fold™ – For reshaping the smartphone expectations
23. Sardar Patel Stadium – For designing a fan-focused cricket ground
24. Woven City – For prototyping a fully autonomous world
25. Parasite– For breaking barriers in filmmaking—financially and culturally
26. Sydney Metro – For transforming transportation in Australia’s largest city
27. Travis Scott’s Astronomical – For turning a gaming platform into a global stage
28. Bridge Ventilator – For shifting trajectories to quickly deliver a new kind of emergency medical equipment
29. Fuliza – For solving mobile customers’ short-term cash needs
30. Amazon™ Air Hub – For breaking new ground in e-commerce with a US$1.5 billion effort to command the skies
31. Notre Dame Cathedral Restoration – For taking the first steps to raise a landmark from the ashes—with care and precision
32. Keep Kids Learning Pilot – For adjusting on the fly to get students the supplies they need
33. Dogger Bank Wind Farm – For helping the United Kingdom step toward a carbon-neutral future
34. International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor – For boldly exploring next-gen nuclear energy
35. Libra™ – For pushing digital currency into the mainstream
36. National Convalescent Plasma Project – For joining forces to quickly test a COVID-19 treatment
37. Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah Causeway – For building a bridge to Kuwait’s future
38. Some Good News™– For giving us something to smile about in lockdown and providing DIY video production can be world-class
39. Chollian-2B – For creating an orbiting eye satellite to track pollution
40. Animal Crossing: New Horizons– For offering gamers community when they needed it most
41. Sycamore™ – For taking a quantum leap into the unknown
42. Mjøstårnet – For using wood to reach the sky
43. Campos del Sol – For helping Chile turn away from fossil fuels and toward carbon neutrality
44. Micra^® AV – For upgrading the world’s smallest pacemaker—without skipping a beat
45. Beijing Daxing International Airport – For creating the world’s largest terminal, poised to help China rebuild its tourism industry
46. Creatable World™ – For listening to kids asking for a more inclusive way to play
47. Al-Shera’a – For raising the net-zero bar on government buildings
48. Plant-for-the-Planet™ App – For using technology to gamify and accelerate reforestation
49. Capital City Relocation Plans – For plotting out a new political nerve of Indonesia—a smarter and greener one
50. ReRun – For helping companies use data to bring people back to the office—safely

Visit the Region-Specific Top 10 Most Influential Projects Lists

• Africa’s Top 10 Most Influential Projects
• Asia Pacific’s Top 10 Most Influential Projects
• Canada’s Top 10 Most Influential Projects
• China’s Top 10 Most Influential Projects
• Europe/United Kingdom’s Top 10 Most Influential Projects
• India’s Top 10 Most Influential Projects
• Latin America’s Top 10 Most Influential Projects
• Middle East’s Top 10 Most Influential Projects
• North America's Top 10 Most Influential Projects

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About Project Management Institute (PMI)

Project Management Institute (PMI) is the world's leading association for those who consider project, program or portfolio management their profession. Through global advocacy, collaboration, education and research, we work to prepare more than three million professionals around the world for The Project Economy: the coming economy in which work, and individuals, are organized around projects, products, programs and value streams Now 50 years in the making, we work in nearly every country around the world to advance careers, improve organizational success and further mature the project management profession through globally-recognized standards, certifications, communities, resources, tools, academic research, publications, professional development courses and networking opportunities. As part of the PMI family, ProjectManagement.com^® interactive website creates online global communities that deliver more resources, better tools, larger networks and broader perspectives. Visit us at www.PMI.org, www.projectmanagement.com, www.facebook.com/PMInstitute and on Twitter @PMInstitute

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Contact information

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