Science Research: Is Smaller Better?

Today, a large percentage of scientific research is conducted in large, collaborative teams.  But according to a paper published in Nature yesterday (February 13), “researchers may be better off working in small teams.”  The Nature study, led by James Evans of the University of Chicago, was reviewed by Ruth Williams’ article in today’s online edition of The Scientist.

Evans et al. studied the citations of tens of millions of research papers and patents.  Papers were evaluated for degree of innovativeness or “disruptiveness” based on the degree to which subsequent research articles cited the papers alone without including citations used in the paper itself.   Highly disruptive papers, those cited alone by subsequent authors, were found to contain research that was more transformative.  Such innovative papers provide a ‘jumping-off point’ for a new field of research,” says sociologist Jason Owen-Smith of the University of Michigan.

A closer look at the disruptive papers revealed that “big teams tend to work on existing theories rather than instigating new ones.”  The analysis showed that “the most disruptive papers, patents, and software products tend to be produced by small groups, and that, as team size grows, disruptiveness declines.”  Interestingly, even an individual scientist’s disruptiveness tended to drop as the number of co-authors increased.

At a time when big government funding has contributed toward major inflation in cost of health care, housing, and college tuition, the Nature report affords the scientific community a timely opportunity to consider how research funding approaches affect research progress.  According to Anita Woolley, who studies organizational behavior and teamwork at Carnegie Mellon University, funding agencies often “push us in the direction of having bigger and bigger teams.  This [research] is really calling that into question.”

I thank my friends Roger and Margaret Riffle who have long ties to West Virginia for sharing an article by Connor Griffith, business editor of WVNews.  The article, entitled “Touchstone Labs: Growing Business and Sending WV Coal into Space,” features the innovative research by a small R & D firm, named Touchstone Research Laboratories.  Touchstone was launched in the basement of a monastery, in 1980, by president and CEO, Brian Joseph.

Since its founding, Touchstone Research Laboratories has become a “three-time Tibbetts Award recipient for its broad-based product development research philosophy, which focuses on the development of next-generation, over the horizon materials and products.”*  Since its founding, Touchstone has formed a research park and has spawned three other companies. Other spin-off companies are in the works.  According to Joseph, “This is not that far off from Thomas Edison’s whole approach.  He called his place the Invention Factory and what we basically have is an invention factory.  Everything we’ve been spinning out, we invented this stuff.”

One of the companies spawned by Touchstone is CFOAM, named after its principal product, CFOAM®, short for “carbon foam.”  CFOAM is produced by pulverizing coal (something West Virginia has plenty of), foaming it under pressure, then heat-treating and cutting it into desired shapes.  This structural foam is light-weight and can withstand temperatures above 6,000 degrees!  CFOAM is now used in place of ceramic tiles on space shuttles, and its future is promising for applications not yet discovered.

Touchstone Research Labs also developed Metpreg, the world’s strongest aluminum.  Metpreg is now used in bicycle frames where it provides as much strength as current commercial frames at one-third of the weight.

I’m sure that Touchstone is but one example of the many “invention factories” that have arisen from the innovative ideas of small groups of researchers.  Such stories make it tempting to conclude that the future of science and technology rests in the philosophy that “small is better.”  However, Ruth Williams concludes her article in The Scientist with a reasonable assessment by Jason Owen-Smith who believes “we need a combination of big teams developing and strengthening existing ideas and small teams performing high-risk, high-reward, innovative projects.

The fact that there seems to be no end to the creativity of humankind is a testimony to our Creator God in whose image we were created.  The Genesis account in Scripture records that, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters (Genesis 1: 1-2).  Into this formless void, God began to create order and diversity of mineral, microbe, plant, and animal.  God created these things with the capacity for further development and diversification through science and technology.  And then, He created Adam and gave him and his descendants dominion over creation with a mandate to exercise servant stewardship as His representatives on the Earth.  The current article seems to have featured some of the more positive examples of God-given creativity in science at work.

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* https://www.sbir.gov/sites/default/files/SBAsuccess_TRL_FINAL.pdf