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Originally published in Science Express on 12 April 2007
Science 18 May 2007:
Vol. 316. no. 5827, pp. 1036 - 1039
DOI: 10.1126/science.1136099
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Reports

The Increasing Dominance of Teams in Production of Knowledge

Stefan Wuchty,1* Benjamin F. Jones,2* Brian Uzzi1,2*{dagger}

We have used 19.9 million papers over 5 decades and 2.1 million patents to demonstrate that teams increasingly dominate solo authors in the production of knowledge. Research is increasingly done in teams across nearly all fields. Teams typically produce more frequently cited research than individuals do, and this advantage has been increasing over time. Teams now also produce the exceptionally high-impact research, even where that distinction was once the domain of solo authors. These results are detailed for sciences and engineering, social sciences, arts and humanities, and patents, suggesting that the process of knowledge creation has fundamentally changed.

1 Northwestern Institute on Complexity (NICO), Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.
2 Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.

* These authors contributed equally to this work.

{dagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: uzzi{at}northwestern.edu

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