Going big: The science behind large-scale projects
Cooperation between researchers and institutions is the foundation of scientific research. It’s common practice for researchers who work more in isolation, or in small teams. However, over the last 10 years, a fairly large number of social and behavioural scientists across labs, institutions of higher education and research, disciplines and countries have increasingly been pooling their resources for any given project. One notable example is ManyBabies(opens in new window) with over 500 collaborators in 50 countries.
United we stand
The scaling up of such a large number of resources is known as big team science (BTS). “BTS is a new way of conducting research where many researchers come together to answer a common question that is crucial to their field,” explained Nicolás Alessandroni, a postdoctoral fellow at Concordia University in Canada, in a news release(opens in new window). “This is important because research has traditionally been conducted in a siloed manner, where individual teams from one institution work with small, limited samples.” He discussed the many advantages of BTS: “The beauty of big team science is that anyone can join, from undergraduates to faculty. There are all these different experiences that coalesce around BTS, and this provides an opportunity to integrate many perspectives into a project. You can have some people who are very seasoned researchers and others who are young students willing to collaborate and embrace this new way of doing science.” Dr Alessandroni further added: “Its very definition relates to important values in science: transparency, collaboration, accessibility, equity, diversity and inclusion — it touches on many important topics that have been disregarded in the practice of science traditionally. In many ways, it overlaps with the concept of open science, where data is shared openly and publications are available in open-access journals and repositories, making knowledge available without charging readers.”
Hard to handle
The problem with BTS is management, as is the case with large teams or groups. Simultaneously managing many human and material resources has its challenges. These mainly include communication, team building, governance, authorship and credit. Then there are the logistical issues, such as language, cultures and time zones. To assist colleagues in creating and managing their own projects, Dr Alessandroni and a research team experienced in BTS produced a how-to guide that has been published in the ‘Royal Society Open Science’(opens in new window) journal. It presents a roadmap of best practices and ways to overcome challenges. The guide provides useful advice on things to know before beginning a project, and what to do when starting, implementing and completing it. The researchers acknowledge the distinctiveness of each BTS project, and they don’t claim that this is a one-size-fits-all guide. But following a common approach can lead to success. Adaptation will also be key. “Institutions worldwide can help foster BTS collaborations by devising new workflows, policies and incentive structures,” Dr Alessandroni concluded. “Naturally, this would involve important changes to the academic ecosystem, so there is much to discuss.”
Keywords
project, science, collaboration, big team science, research, researcher