Scientific Collaboration

Science is increasingly defined by multidimensional collaborative networks. Despite the unprecedented growth of scientific collaboration around the globe – the collaborative turn – geography still matters for the cognitive enterprise. This book explores how geography conditions scientific collaboration and how collaboration affects the spatiality of science. This book offers a complex analysis of the spatial aspects of scientific collaboration, addressing the topic at a number of levels: individual, organizational, urban, regional, national, and international. Spatial patterns of scientific collaboration are analysed along with their determinants and consequences. By combining a vast array of approaches, concepts, and methodologies, the volume offers a comprehensive theoretical framework for the geography of scientific collaboration. The examples of scientific collaboration policy discussed in the book are taken from the European Union, the United States, and China. Through a number of case studies the authors analyse the background, development and evaluation of these policies. This book will be of interest to researchers in diverse disciplines such as regional studies, scientometrics, R&D policy, socio-economic geography and network analysis. It will also be of interest to policymakers, and to managers of research organisations.

Why collaborations in STEM fields succeed or fail and how to ensure success Once upon a time, it was the lone scientist who achieved brilliant breakthroughs. No longer. Today, science is done in teams of as many as hundreds of researchers who may be scattered across continents. These collaborations can be powerful, but they also demand new ways of thinking. The Strength in Numbers illuminates the nascent science of team science by synthesizing the results of the most far-reaching study to date on collaboration among university scientists. Drawing on a national survey with responses from researchers at more than one hundred universities, archival data, and extensive interviews with scientists and engineers in over a dozen STEM disciplines, Barry Bozeman and Jan Youtie establish a framework for characterizing different collaborations and their outcomes, and lay out what they have found to be the gold-standard approach: consultative collaboration management. The Strength in Numbers is an indispensable guide for scientists interested in maximizing collaborative success.

How technology and bureaucracy shape collaborative scientific research projects: an empirical study of multiorganizational collaboration in the physical sciences. Collaboration among organizations is rapidly becoming common in scientific research as globalization and new communication technologies make it possible for researchers from different locations and institutions to work together on common projects. These scientific and technological collaborations are part of a general trend toward more fluid, flexible, and temporary organizational arrangements, but they have received very limited scholarly attention. Structures of Scientific Collaboration is the first study to examine multi-organizational collaboration systematically, drawing on a database of 53 collaborations documented for the Center for History of Physics of the American Institute of Physics. By integrating quantitative sociological analyses with detailed case histories, Shrum, Genuth, and Chompalov pioneer a new and truly interdisciplinary method for the study of science and technology. Scientists undertake multi-organizational collaborations because individual institutions often lack sufficient resources--including the latest technology--to achieve a given research objective. The authors find that collaborative research depends on both technology and bureaucracy; scientists claim to abhor bureaucracy, but most collaborations use it constructively to achieve their goals. The book analyzes the structural elements of collaboration (among them formation, size and duration, organization, technological practices, and participant experiences) and the relationships among them. The authors find that trust, though viewed as positive, is not necessarily associated with successful projects; indeed, the formal structures of bureaucracy reduce the need for high levels of trust--and make possible the independence so valued by participating scientists.

Modern science is increasingly collaborative, as signaled by rising numbers of coauthored papers, papers with international coauthors, and multi-investigator grants. Historically, scientific collaborations were carried out by scientists in the same physical location--the Manhattan Project of the 1940s, for example, involved thousands of scientists gathered on a remote plateau in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Today, information and communication technologies allow cooperation among scientists from far-flung institutions and different disciplines. Scientific Collaboration on the Internet provides both broad and in-depth views of how new technology is enabling novel kinds of science and engineering collaboration. The book offers commentary from notable experts in the field along with case studies of large-scale collaborative projects, past and ongoing. The projects described range from the development of a national virtual observatory for astronomical research to a National Institutes of Health funding program for major multi-laboratory medical research; from the deployment of a cyberinfrastructure to connect experts in earthquake engineering to partnerships between developed and developing countries in AIDS research. The chapter authors speak frankly about the problems these projects encountered as well as the successes they achieved. The book strikes a useful balance between presenting the real stories of collaborations and developing a scientific approach to conceiving, designing, implementing, and evaluating such projects. It points to a future of scientific collaborations that build successfully on aspects from multiple disciplines.

A narrative guide to help scientists improve their collaboration techniques and build trusting relationships with their research teams. The days of scientists conducting solitary inquiries in isolated labs are effectively over, with most researchers instead collaborating in cross-functional teams. In addition to mastering the technical skills necessary in their respective fields, scientists must now learn strategies for better communication and relationship building to succeed in reaching their research goals. In Scientific Collaboration, biosecurity researcher and animal disease ecologist Jeanne M. Fair shares exciting—and occasionally cringeworthy—true stories of scientists working together. These examples provide an approachable way to introduce the principles crucial to effective scientific collaboration. From the global community of scientists measuring sea-ice decline to cooperative private-public sector investigations of harrowing virus outbreaks, the experiences described demonstrate how scientists can rise to meet challenges together. Fair explains how to foster the principles of community, integrity, loyalty, communication, and compassion among teams. Scientists adopting and applying these principles will improve communication and trust among team members while they work toward the common goal of discovery. Highlighting multidisciplinary research teams that have achieved transformational breakthroughs as well as stories of tough lessons learned, Scientific Collaboration provides a foundation for increasing research productivity while bringing more fun into the collaborative process. This book will appeal to all scientists and team leaders in this new scientific world, wherein the most important breakthroughs happen through cooperation, combined effort, and mutual trust.

Science is increasingly defined by multidimensional collaborative networks. Despite the unprecedented growth of scientific collaboration around the globe – the collaborative turn – geography still matters for the cognitive enterprise. This book explores how geography conditions scientific collaboration and how collaboration affects the spatiality of science. This book offers a complex analysis of the spatial aspects of scientific collaboration, addressing the topic at a number of levels: individual, organizational, urban, regional, national, and international. Spatial patterns of scientific collaboration are analysed along with their determinants and consequences. By combining a vast array of approaches, concepts, and methodologies, the volume offers a comprehensive theoretical framework for the geography of scientific collaboration. The examples of scientific collaboration policy discussed in the book are taken from the European Union, the United States, and China. Through a number of case studies the authors analyse the background, development and evaluation of these policies. This book will be of interest to researchers in diverse disciplines such as regional studies, scientometrics, R&D policy, socio-economic geography and network analysis. It will also be of interest to policymakers, and to managers of research organisations.

Current scientific research almost always requires collaboration among several (if not several hundred) specialized researchers. When scientists co-author a journal article, who deserves credit for discoveries or blame for errors? How should scientific institutions promote fruitful collaborations among scientists? In this work, leading philosophers of science address these critical questions

Today in most scientific and technical fields more than 90% of research studies and publications are collaborative, often resulting in high-impact research and development of commercial applications, as reflected in patents. Nowadays in many areas of science, collaboration is not a preference but, literally, a work prerequisite. The purpose of this book is to review and critique the burgeoning scholarship on research collaboration. The authors seek to identify gaps in theory and research and identify the ways in which existing research can be used to improve public policy for collaboration and to improve project-level management of collaborations using Scientific and Technical Human Capital (STHC) theory as a framework. Broadly speaking, STHC is the sum of scientific and technical and social knowledge, skills and resources embodied in a particular individual. It is both human capital endowments, such as formal education and training and social relations and network ties that bind scientists and the users of science together. STHC includes the human capital which is the unique set of resources the individual brings to his or her own work and to collaborative efforts. Generally, human capital models have developed separately from social capital models, but in the practice of science and the career growth of scientists, the two are not easily disentangled. Using a multi-factor model, the book explores various factors affecting collaboration outcomes, with particular attention on institutional factors such as industry-university relations and the rise of large-scale university research centers.