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This is a guest post by Dr Mehwaesh Islam, Policy Officer at the Academy of Medical Sciences, London, UK.

The stereotypical picture of the lone scientist, toiling away in a secluded lab, only to emerge when they have their eureka moment, is rarely the way science is done these days. Scientific research is rapidly becoming a collective enterprise, and scientific discoveries are the product of large, often multidisciplinary teams, working together to solve complex problems. This rise in ‘team science’ is being driven by publishers, employers, and researchers, and also by funders.

A growing number of the latter are becoming aware of the advantages of team science and are adopting a Grand Challenges approach to fund research. But what impact is the growing number of authors on publications having on career development and recognition? Is working on team science particularly affecting early career researchers (ECRs)?

At the Academy of Medical Sciences, we initiated a policy project, to answer these questions and to understand some of the drivers and barriers to researchers participating in team science.

We found that the current system is not equipped to adequately evaluate the contributions of individual researchers, and is unable to provide appropriate support to ECRs working in team science. The traditional focus on first and last author contributions means that middle authors are less able to claim credit. This is why we are calling for better information about the contributions of individual team members. This information should also be used and valued in the assessments made by employers and funders in job and funding applications.

We are also asking employers, funders and researchers to work with publishers to develop a system to allow transparent allocation of contributions that can be used on publications – Project CRediT is an example that is being trialled by several publishers.

Making this work will require a culture shift for all key players (funders, universities, and researchers) away from using authorship positions to evaluate the importance of a contribution, and would make team science a more attractive option for researchers.

What can researchers do to drive this change? A fair bit, actually – through their crucial roles as team members, peer reviewers and participants on recruitment, promotion and funding panels.

It will be crucial to get more researchers at all career stages to adopt at least some of the ‘best practices’ that we highlight in the report:

• Researchers should sign up for an individual identifier through ORCID. It’s a way to distinguish yourself from every other researcher, and to ensure that your research outputs and affiliations can be linked to a digital identifier.
• Agree on milestones, credit, and clear areas of responsibility for all individuals involved at the outset of team science projects, and review these throughout the life of the project.
• Obtain training in team skills such as networking, leadership and management. Ask your employer for institutional support with such training, if required.
• Provide mentoring and coaching to fellow team members, especially new or less experienced students or trainees.

And finally…

Team leaders play a hugely important role, almost like the conductor of an orchestra, in coordinating the team; they can instil the right culture and behaviours, and encourage a ‘challenge’ environment within a research group, where everyone feels comfortable suggesting and receiving constructive criticism from everyone else.

We hope that the implementation of the recommendations arising from this project will ensure that individual researchers are rewarded and recognised for their contributions to collaborative scientific efforts.

To learn more about the project and to view the report, please visit: www.acmedsci.ac.uk/teamscience