The UK government, through the Office of Government Commerce, has invested heavily in program management (or programme management as it is known in the UK). In Europe, the term normally refers to multiple change projects: projects that are designed to deliver benefits to the host organization.

Program management provides a layer above project management focusing on selecting the best group of programs, defining them in terms of their constituent projects and providing an infrastructure where projects can be run successfully but leaving project management to the project management community.

Program management responsibilities can vary. For instance, manufacturing program management responsibilities will be much different than program management responsibilities for a pharmaceutical trial and data collection program.

Differences from Project management
A program (in business) is different from a project, in that:

A project is unique and is of definite duration. A program is ongoing and implemented within a business to consistently achieve certain results for the business.
Program Management includes activity to manage a business program and may include management of projects to step-wise improve program performance levels. The common definition of Program Management as the management of multiple projects is seen as short-sighted to the project management discipline.
In the course of achieving required results, business programs will normally understand related business constraints and determine the processes required to achieve results based on resources allocated. Improvement of processes is a continuous operation that very much contrasts a program from a project.
At the lowest level project managers co-ordinate individual projects. They are overseen by the Program Manager who accounts to the Program Sponsor (or board).