Team careers in science: formation, composition and success of persistent collaborations

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the formation, evolution, and success of persistent scientific teams over time, revealing key features that influence their productivity and impact using a large dataset of scientific publications.

Contribution

It introduces a large-scale analysis of persistent scientific collaborations, characterizing team trajectories, composition, and success factors, which were previously underexplored.

Findings

Identified 511,550 core persistent teams from 205 million papers.

Characterized team formation, dissolution, and productivity over time.

Linked team composition features to scientific impact.

Abstract

Teams are the fundamental units propelling innovation and advancing modern science. A rich literature links the fundamental features of teams, such as their size and diversity, to academic success. However, such analyses fail to capture temporal patterns, treating each group of co-authors as a distinct unit and neglecting the existence of persistent collaborations. By contrast, teams are dynamical entities, made of core members who consistently work together, surrounded by transient members who sporadically participate. Leveraging on a large dataset of over 205 million scientific papers published since 1900, we extract 511,550 core teams of statistically significant persistent collaborations of pairs and larger groups of scientists. We look into `team careers' investigating their trajectories in time, characterizing their formation, productivity and eventual dissolution. We characterize team composition along multiple dimensions, including age, academic affiliation and scientific disciplines. Finally, we investigate the academic impact of persistent collaborations, hallmarking the key compositional features underlying their success. Our work sheds light on the nature of persistent teams, informing researchers, institutions and funding agencies about the dynamics of their formation, evolution and success.