In contemporary business and science a project is defined as a

collaborative enterprise, involving research or design, that is

carefully planned to achieve a particular aim.
[1]

Projects can be further defined as temporary rather than
permanent social systems or work systems that are constituted by teams within
or across organizations to accomplish particular tasks under time
constraints.
[2]
An on-going project is usually called (or evolves into) a program
The word project comes from the Latin word projectum from the Latin
verb proicere, "before an action" which in turn comes from pro-, which denotes
precedence, something that comes before something else in time (paralleling
the Greek ) and iacere, "to do". The word "project" thus actually originally
meant "before an action".
When the English language initially adopted the word, it referred to a
plan of something, not to the act of actually carrying this plan out. Something
performed in accordance with a project became known as an "object".
School and university
At school, educational institute and university, a project is a research
assignment given to a student which generally requires a larger amount of effort
and more independent work than is involved in a normal essay assignment. It
requires students to undertake their own fact-finding and analysis, either from
library/internet research or from gathering data empirically. The written report
that comes from the project is usually in the form of a dissertation, which will
contain sections on the project's inception, analysis, findings and
conclusions...
[3]

Engineering project
Engineering projects are, in many countries, specifically defined by legislation,
which requires that such projects should be carried out by
registered engineers and/or registered engineering companies. That is,
companies with license to carry out such works as design and construction
of buildings, power plants, industrial facilities, installation and erection
of electrical grid networks, transportation infrastructure and the like.
The scope of the project is specified in a contract between the owner and the
engineering and construction parties. As a rule, an engineering project is broken
down into designand construction phases. The outputs of the design process
are drawings, calculations, and all other design documentation necessary to
carry out the next phase. The next phase would normally be sending the project
plans to a developer who will then help construct the plans (construction phase).
Project management
In project management a project consists of a temporary endeavor undertaken
to create a unique product, service or result.
[4]
Another definition is a
management environment that is created for the purpose of delivering one or
more business products according to a specified business case.
Project objectives define target status at the end of the project, reaching of
which is considered necessary for the achievement of planned benefits. They
can be formulated asSMART criteria:
[5]
Specific, Measurable (or at least
evaluable) achievement, Achievable (recently Agreed-to or Acceptable are used
regularly as well), Realistic (given the current state of organizational resources)
and Time terminated (bounded). The evaluation (measurement) occurs at the
project closure. However a continuous guard on the project progress should be
kept by monitoring and evaluating. It is also worth noting that SMART is best
applied for incremental type innovation projects.
[citation needed]
For radical type
projects it does not apply as well. Goals for such projects tend to be broad,
qualitative, stretch/unrealistic and success driven.