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Scientific Productivity

News blog readers will have seen my previous piece on the overall declining productivity of science.[1] I favour the low hanging fruit explanation for the gradual decline in the productivity of us scientists over the last six decades. However, I do not think the negative role of increasing bureaucracy and almost stifling procedural safeguards should be underestimated. I also think that there is far too much mission creep and that too many objectives are loaded onto single projects. We are expected not just to advance a scientific problem, but educate the workforce, engage widely with our communities, provide services to industry, interact with civil society, influence policy-makers, disseminate our findings and so on. Grant application forms typically devote a substantial minority of space to the scientific question of interest.

Those concerned about this topic will be interested in two things. First, Dominic Cummings, the UK Prime Minister’s senior advisor, has turned his attention to the topic.[2] Secondly, he cites evidence from the journal Nature that small teams are generally more productive than larger teams.[3] Apparently the evidence suggests that while larger teams are more efficient at exploiting discoveries, more radical innovations and disruptive ideas are more likely to emanate from smaller teams.

I agree with Cumming’s conclusion that we probably need both small and large teams. In the meantime I hope that he will turn his influential attention to the dead weight of bureaucracy, which not only diminishes the productivity of us scientists, but which also extinguishes the share joy of discovery.

Richard Lilford, ARC WM Director


References:

  1. Lilford RJ. Is Research Productivity on the Decline Internationally? NIHR CLAHRC West Midlands News Blog. 24 November 2017.
  2. Cummings D. On the referendum #32: Science/ productivity – a) small teams are more disruptive, b) ‘science is becoming far less efficient’. Dominic Cummings’s Blog. 11 March 2019.
  3. Wu L, Wang D, Evans JA. Large teams develop and small teams disrupt science and technology. Nature. 2019; 566: 378-82
Fri 28 Feb 2020, 12:00 | Tags: Research, Richard Lilford