The capacity of innovation and the technological development, in an R&D institute depend, among other things, on a management body with special competences. The present work developed and applied a methodology to elicit, filter and prioritize the set of managerial competences considered essential. The method was applied and tested in the Institute of Energetic and Nuclear Researchipen, which besides R&D, it is also dedicated to education and production. The methodology includes the following elements: (a) search, compilation and consolidation of competences description, which are considered essential in similar institutions; (b) statements fitting and grouping according to seven BNQA's criteria; (c) filtering and reduction of the population survey list, concentrating on the parts which are of interest to the ipen; (d) prioritization in two Delphi rounds, with the same population; (e) analysis and format of the resulting products, using single and multi-varied descriptive statistical techniques. The work was well-succeeded and, taking into account the high rate of reply to the Delphi survey, the obtained findings may be considered reliable.