Is Small Team Science on the Decline? Exploring Its Future

Few academic papers in history have had as profound an impact as the 1953 Nature paper by James Watson and Francis Crick, which introduced the double helix structure of DNA¹. This work epitomized small team science, inspiring countless subsequent research efforts worldwide.

However, a recent analysis of author data from the Nature Index reveals a decline in small team science. In fields like biology and health sciences, where Watson and Crick made significant contributions, the prevalence of solo and co-authored papers is dwindling.

In the natural sciences, the percentage of indexed articles authored by one or two researchers dropped from 10.8% to 7.1% between 2015 and 2024. Conversely, large team science is on the rise, with the most significant growth seen in papers with 11 to 50 authors. Overall, publications with 3 to 50 authors increased from 88.5% to 92.2%.

While the Nature Index tracks only a subset of high-quality journals, this finding aligns with previous studies indicating a long-term upward trend in research team sizes across disciplines (see ‘Midpoint’). At the start of the 20th century, single- and two-author papers dominated the landscape², but since the mid-20th century, average research team sizes have consistently increased³.

Lingfei Wu, an information scientist at the University of Pittsburgh, emphasizes that “the decline in papers with one or two authors represents one of the most stable patterns in science,” underscoring the significant role of team size in scientific innovation.

Team Dynamics

Among the natural sciences in the Nature Index, the biological sciences reported the lowest percentage of small team papers in 2024. From 2015 to 2024, the proportion of bioscience papers with one or two authors fell from 6.1% to 3.8%, while works with 3 to 50 authors increased from 93.3% to 95.3%. Chemistry also experienced a decline in small team papers, with only 4.7% of chemistry publications being authored by one or two researchers in 2024, down from 8.2% in 2015.

In the health sciences, which joined the Nature Index in 2022, the percentage of papers authored by one or two researchers remained static at 1%.

The physical sciences uniquely saw an absolute increase in small team papers (+300 from 2015-2024), yet its representation within all physical science papers declined from 14.9% to 9.6%. This trend may indicate a faster growth rate of publications from large teams, although small team contributions remain crucial.

Despite some increases in small team science, it is increasingly overshadowed by the rapid expansion of large-scale collaborations, resulting in a diminished share of overall scientific output attributed to small teams. This shift does not imply the disappearance of small teams but reflects the rising prevalence and productivity of larger collaborative projects (see Team size by subject).

Global Shift

The observed shift away from small team science can be attributed to long-term changes in research organization and funding practices worldwide, according to Wu. “The establishment of centralized funding agencies post World War II in the U.S. and elsewhere led to a preference for assembling research teams with diverse expertise to secure financial backing,” he explains.

Chaokun Nie, a metascience researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, highlights that modern funding systems often favor large teams. “Grants from organizations like the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health in the U.S. encourage interdisciplinary, multicenter collaboration,” he states.

Mike Thelwall, a data science researcher at the University of Sheffield in the UK, notes that many European Union grants also promote cross-border partnerships.

Almost Half of the World’s Nature Index Chemistry Research is Now Conducted in China

The analysis indicates a decline in the percentage of one- and two-author papers across most research-driven countries. In the U.S., the share dropped from 9.8% in 2015 to 6% in 2024. Similar trends were evident in Germany, the UK, and South Korea, with one- and two-author papers falling from around 7% to about 4% of research output during the same timeframe. In China, single- and two-author works decreased from 3.5% to 2.4% of total output.

Contrastingly, Japan’s proportion of papers with one or two authors remained stable at just below 8% throughout the decade, with a slight decrease in papers with 3 to 50 authors from 89.1% to 88.5% of total research output.

While it is challenging to draw broad conclusions about research publication trends in specific countries, Yukie Sano, an information systems researcher at Japan’s University of Tsukuba, suggests that financial pressures and cultural factors may have hindered the transition to large-scale domestic and international research teams. Compared to researchers in other nations, “Japanese scientists tend to have relatively few international collaborations,” she reveals.

Sano attributes this partly to the weakened yen, which has made international travel more costly, and funding reforms that shifted support from stable institutional backing to competitive grants. This shift has resulted in increased administrative burdens, leaving researchers with less time to cultivate international networks.

“I spend more time preparing funding applications, which reduces my research time,” Sano shares, recounting how her workload prevented her from attending an international conference. “I feel isolated from other countries due to the challenging scenario at Japanese universities.”

While researchers worldwide face similar challenges, Sano believes that a combination of cultural and financial factors may explain the stability of Japan’s scientific team sizes.

Specialized Science

The increasing complexity of modern science is another significant factor in the decline of small team science. With reliance on large, costly shared infrastructures like supercomputers, collaboration is crucial, according to Nie.

Moreover, many contemporary research projects demand a diverse skill set. “Science is becoming progressively specialized, and producing impactful papers across numerous fields now often necessitates multiple areas of expertise,” Nie elaborates. For instance, biomedical research may require contributions from laboratory scientists, clinicians, data analysts, and statisticians.