Significant research on R&D project evaluation methods is feasible when we have clear data and conditions for measurement. In university projects, it is unwise to use directly the reference points and practices of industrial or independent labs. As a result, the method and the model introduced in this paper are adapted to find the most informative success factors for engineering R&D projects when the non-professional project manager’s experience is the primary source of data. The model was developed using knowledge acquisition (KA), while 21 projects within the same domain were recorded in the knowledge base through semi-structured interviews with experienced project managers during a fine-tuning process. The contribution of this paper is the logical rules and the attributes by which we can understand the project managers’ mindset in R&D projects of a higher education institutions. The paper includes an evaluation of the projects as a case study.