The discussion centers on the assertion that smaller research teams produce more disruptive scientific work compared to larger groups, as highlighted in an article from Physics World. According to Evans, smaller teams are less constrained by existing research, allowing them to explore innovative ideas that challenge current trends. In contrast, larger teams tend to focus on building upon established work, resulting in higher citation counts but potentially stifling creativity. The findings are supported by a recent paper published in Nature, which confirms the robustness of these conclusions across various definitions of disruption.
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"Evans told Physics World that he thinks smaller teams have more to gain and less to lose from disruption as they cannot compete with larger teams when it comes to building on previous work. This pushes them to explore possibilities that “don’t gel with but could disrupt” current scientific and technological trends. Evans says that clashes in large teams also reduce the number of ideas and steer members towards things they have in common."
Do citations by the (many) authors get counted in these citation counts?gleem said:Big groups are more impactful having more citations than papers with fewer authors, building on current research and concentrating on near term goals.
From the paper, published this week in Nature:BillTre said:Do citations by the (many) authors get counted in these citation counts?
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-0941-9We further test the robustness of our results against several different definitions of the disruption measure, including the removal of self-citation links, exclusion of all but high-impact references and other variations (Extended Data Fig. 5g–i). Across all variations, our conclusions remain the same.