Science is a team sport

SWAMI SUBRAMANIAM

May 2023
from Shaastra :: vol 02 issue 03 :: May - Jun 2023

The lone scientist is ineffective in the era of modern science. Strengthening teamwork across disciplines and geographies is the key.

The solitary scientist is disappearing. Most modern science is collaborative. This was seen quite spectacularly when the human genome sequence was published by some 160 authors. Analysis of published papers by sociologist Brian Uzzi and his colleagues reveals that in the natural sciences, the number of authors per published paper doubled between the late 1950s and the late 1990s. And this trend of an increase in the number of authors per paper continues. Science is a team sport.