Welcome
Welcome to Designing and Leading Quantum Projects, a course designed to inform teams and organizations on how to develop capabilities required for realizing quantum initiatives.
This course is intended for academic, business, and organizational leadership in the early stages of building quantum projects. The lessons will cover common developmental stages and best practices identified by successful innovators in the field. Most of the content will be applicable across quantum projects broadly, though a few topics will be specific to a particular type of partnership. For example, grant writing might be more often applicable to academic researchers, though grants for startups and enterprises are also important in this ecosystem.
This course is mostly non-technical. Technical jargon is limited to descriptions of concrete example workflows, example wording for grant proposals, and discussion of realistic deliverables and their constraints.
The contents are organized as follows:
- Introduction
- Early stages - things to consider and have in place prior to large purchases of quantum computing time, and prior to standing up a team
- Standing up a team - key roles and responsibilities, attributes of successful teams
- Grant writing - mapping best practices in general for grant writing in the context of quantum computing
Join us for this deep dive into building successful quantum projects!
Key players and audience
Below is a brief description of several key players in this ecosystem and potential audiences for this course.
The IBM Quantum Network
The IBM Quantum Network is a worldwide collective shaping the future of quantum computing. The hundreds of partners in the Network include Fortune 500 companies, universities, laboratories, and startups, all helping to build a quantum economy. Partnership in the Network includes access to exclusive meetings and select channels where the latest ideas in quantum are shared. IBM Quantum Network partners collaborate even outside these events, and benefit from close working relationships.
Every partner in the IBM Quantum Network is different, but some coarse-binned categories are useful for context, such as startups, global systems integrators (GSIs), academic institutions, non-academic research institutions, and large enterprises.
Many of the guidelines and practices shared in this course were developed and field-tested by partners in the IBM Quantum Network.
Startups: Startups are agile, innovation‑driven companies that rapidly turn new ideas into scalable business solutions. In the quantum computing ecosystem, they play a pivotal role by accelerating technical breakthroughs, commercializing niche capabilities, and bridging cutting‑edge research with real‑world applications. Their speed and specialization help catalyze growth across the entire industry.
Global systems integrators (GSIs): Global systems integrators (GSIs) are large, end‑to‑end technology and services firms that help organizations modernize, integrate, and scale complex digital solutions. In the quantum computing ecosystem, they play a crucial role by enabling enterprise‑grade adoption at a global scale. Their broad industry reach helps turn quantum innovation into operational impact.
Academic institutions: These are universities, colleges, or consortia of educational institutions. In the quantum computing ecosystem, they play a central role by pushing the boundaries of theory and experimentation while training the next generation of quantum scientists and engineers. Their discoveries and expertise form the bedrock on which other organizations can build their quantum impact.
Research institutions: These are specialized organizations, like national labs, focused on advancing scientific and technical knowledge through dedicated, often mission‑driven R&D. In the quantum computing ecosystem, they play a vital role by generating breakthrough discoveries, developing enabling technologies, and providing deep domain expertise that fuels innovation across industry and academia. Their educational initiatives are often focused more on training rising researchers and less on classroom education.
Enterprise organizations: Enterprise organizations are established companies that apply technology to solve real business challenges, optimize operations, and create competitive advantage at scale. In the quantum computing ecosystem, they play a key role by identifying high‑value use cases, funding applied innovation, and piloting solutions that demonstrate measurable impact in real‑world environments.
Quantum Innovation Centers
Quantum Innovation Centers (QICs) serve as elite centers of expertise in the growing and ever-changing quantum ecosystem. Many operate as a hub, an industry or academic leader growing a quantum community by partnering with IBM® directly, and serving as a central contact point for other organizations. The QIC itself may be any of the organization types mentioned above (academic institution, large enterprise, and so on).
The resulting community around an IBM QIC has the potential to meet local needs through a bottom-up approach, to offer a wider variety of quantum computing access plans, and to leverage the community for broader expertise. This can be especially important for smaller organizations and startups. As an IBM QIC, you establish your leadership in the field and build important industry connections - and you are contributing to the ongoing growth of the quantum community. Collaborating with a QIC could facilitate more competitive applications for governmental and private funding.
Some QICs have their own IBM Quantum system on premises. This can be very important when, for example, working with data that cannot legally or responsibly be shared over the Internet, or across international borders.
The quantum community
The broader community is driving quantum computing forward by lowering barriers to entry and amplifying impact through both education and open-source tooling. At universities, community-led teaching initiatives - like bootcamps, hackathons, open syllabi, and student clubs - equip learners with hands-on skills early, align curricula with fast-moving industry practices, and create on-ramps for diverse talent to contribute. At the same time, community contributions to Qiskit code, its documentation, and the IBM Quantum Learning platform, make best practices discoverable and shorten the path from idea to implementation. Together, this virtuous cycle of open education and open-source development expands the talent pipeline, standardizes shared tooling, and turns cutting-edge quantum concepts into accessible, collaborative progress.