FOURTH CHALLENGE: Teamwork and collaboration

This is the fourth challenge at the DDA Winter School for postdocs. Teamwork and collaboration in science happen both within a research group as well as among groups with different scientific expertise. It has long been shown that decision-making by teams rather than individuals most often results in improved, creative solutions. The positive effects of teamwork are also evident in interdisciplinary research or large “grand challenge” science where it is often necessary to publish findings in high impact journals.
While team science and interdisciplinary collaboration can be a golden road to scientific discovery, awarding credit in a traditional system that more often rewards individuals than teams, can cause a significant amount of friction. Authorship is a key currency in researcher assessment, and the order of authorship is one of the most important ways that a researcher gains recognition, funding and further publication in high impact journals. Interestingly, signs of change are afoot, e.g., at CERN where authors are listed alphabetically on publications to avoid giving too much or too little credit to individuals.