Tools for collaboration

Collaborations are on the rise

Think for yourself:

  • Who do you expect to collaborate with during your research program?
  • Across how many institutes, countries, languages, and disciplines can you envision collaborating?

Figure from Duffy 2017

Other relevant literature on the topic:

  • Borer et al. 2023: “Writing a massively multi-authored paper: Overcoming barriers to meaningful authorship for all” in MEE, link

  • Nogrady 2023: “Hyperauthorship: the publishing challenges for ‘big team’ science” in Nature, link

The existence of the Higgs boson was first posited in a trio of papers in 1964. Two of those1,2 were authored solely by UK theoretical physicist Peter Higgs and the other3 was co-authored by his US and Belgian counterparts Robert Brout and François Englert.

Nearly half a century later, the experimental confirmation that the Higgs field existed was published in a paper4 with 2,932 authors. Three years after that, a paper5 detailing a more accurate measurement of the mass of the Higgs boson set a new record for the highest number of authors on a single paper: 5,154.

  • Skills you are developing in this course can help you facilitate collaboration (version control, reproducible code, etc.)

  • These skills also represent a unique contribution to a collaborative team

  • Tools matter, but mindset matters more!