In order to successfully create a new project in Strategy Developer 9.x - 10.x, a user must have the following privileges assigned:
5. Common Privileges
16. Administration
If the user does not have the previously mentioned setup, one of the following errors occurs when trying to create a new project depending on which privileges are missing:

The user account specified does not have privileges to create a new project. For more information, please contact the system administrator.

Project creation failed. The partially created project has been deleted. Please see the error log for an explanation.