The science of team science

In the popular imagination, science is carried out by lone geniuses, waiting for their eureka moment. In reality, that has never been the case – science has always been a team sport. But as researchers try to tackle ever bigger and more interdisciplinary problems, team work is becoming more important than ever. Optimising ‘team science’ endeavours has become an area of study in its own right as universities and funders try to understand how to get the best outcomes from scientific teams.

‘We know very little about scientific teamwork,’ says Stephen Fiore, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Central Florida who has specialised in understanding team performance. In the last decade he has turned his attention to the science of team science, working with the US National Academies of Sciences. ‘I realised that this was a huge gap – those of us who study teams had not really studied science teams,’ he says.

Defining team science isn’t always easy given so much of science is collaborative. ‘There is no single definition but it aims to cover any situation where more than one person is contributing to a research project,’ says Daniel Smith, EPSRC Head of Physical Sciences. It usually denotes large projects that cross institutions, disciplines or sectors.’Perhaps the biggest difference is the people focus,’ adds Smith. ‘It’s not just about the academics and postdocs. It’s about the whole team including, for example, technicians, project managers and skills specialists who are brought in to provide expertise on a specific aspect.’