Department of Sociology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
Knowledge Lab, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
Nature. 2019 Feb;566(7744):378-382. doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-0941-9. Epub 2019 Feb 13.
One of the most universal trends in science and technology today is the growth of large teams in all areas, as solitary researchers and small teams diminish in prevalence. Increases in team size have been attributed to the specialization of scientific activities, improvements in communication technology, or the complexity of modern problems that require interdisciplinary solutions. This shift in team size raises the question of whether and how the character of the science and technology produced by large teams differs from that of small teams. Here we analyse more than 65 million papers, patents and software products that span the period 1954-2014, and demonstrate that across this period smaller teams have tended to disrupt science and technology with new ideas and opportunities, whereas larger teams have tended to develop existing ones. Work from larger teams builds on more-recent and popular developments, and attention to their work comes immediately. By contrast, contributions by smaller teams search more deeply into the past, are viewed as disruptive to science and technology and succeed further into the future-if at all. Observed differences between small and large teams are magnified for higher-impact work, with small teams known for disruptive work and large teams for developing work. Differences in topic and research design account for a small part of the relationship between team size and disruption; most of the effect occurs at the level of the individual, as people move between smaller and larger teams. These results demonstrate that both small and large teams are essential to a flourishing ecology of science and technology, and suggest that, to achieve this, science policies should aim to support a diversity of team sizes.
当今科学技术中最普遍的趋势之一是，在各个领域，大型团队的数量都在增加，而单独的研究人员和小团队的数量则在减少。团队规模的扩大归因于科学活动的专业化、通信技术的改进，或者是需要跨学科解决方案的现代问题的复杂性。团队规模的这种转变提出了一个问题，即大型团队所产生的科学技术的性质是否以及如何与小团队有所不同。在这里，我们分析了超过 6500 万篇论文、专利和软件产品，这些产品涵盖了 1954 年至 2014 年的时间段，并证明在这一时期，较小的团队往往通过新的想法和机会来打破科学技术的现状，而较大的团队则倾向于开发现有的技术。较大团队的工作基于最近和流行的发展，并且对其工作的关注会立即到来。相比之下，较小团队的工作更深入地挖掘过去，被认为对科学技术具有颠覆性，如果能成功的话，也会在未来取得成功。在高影响力的工作中，小团队和大团队之间的差异会被放大，小团队以颠覆性的工作而闻名，大团队则以开发性的工作而闻名。团队规模与颠覆性之间的关系中，主题和研究设计的差异只占很小一部分；大部分影响发生在个人层面上，因为人们在小团队和大团队之间流动。这些结果表明，小团队和大团队对于繁荣的科学技术生态系统都是必不可少的，并且表明，为了实现这一目标，科学政策应该旨在支持多样化的团队规模。
