Large teams develop and small teams disrupt science and technology
Large teams develop and small teams disrupt science and technology
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DOI：
10.1038/s41586-019-0941-9
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发表时间：
2019-02-21
期刊：
影响因子：
64.8
通讯作者：
Evans, James A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Wu, Lingfei;Wang, Dashun;Evans, James A.
当今科学和技术领域最普遍的趋势之一是各个领域的大型团队的增长，而单独的研究人员和小型团队的流行程度正在下降（1-3）。团队规模的增加归因于科学活动的专业化(3)，通信技术的改进（4,5），或者需要跨学科解决方案的现代问题的复杂性（6-8）。团队规模的这种变化提出了一个问题，即大型团队所产生的科学技术的特征是否与小型团队不同，以及如何不同。在这里，我们分析了跨越1954年至2014年的6500多万篇论文、专利和软件产品，并证明了在这一时期，较小的团队倾向于用新的想法和机会来破坏科学和技术，而较大的团队则倾向于开发现有的技术。大型团队的工作建立在最近流行的开发上，他们的工作立即得到关注。相比之下，小团队的贡献更深入地研究过去，被视为对科学和技术的破坏，并在未来取得更大的成功——如果有的话。观察到的小团队和大团队之间的差异在影响更大的工作中被放大，小团队以破坏性工作而闻名，而大团队则以开发工作而闻名。主题和研究设计的差异只占团队规模和中断之间关系的一小部分；大多数影响发生在个人层面，因为人们在较小的团队和较大的团队之间流动。这些结果表明，小型和大型团队对于繁荣的科学和技术生态都是必不可少的，并且建议，为了实现这一目标，科学政策应该旨在支持团队规模的多样性。
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(1-3). Increases in team size have been attributed to the specialization of scientific activities(3), improvements in communication technology(4,5), or the complexity of modern problems that require interdisciplinary solutions(6-8). 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.