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Critical mass and the dependency of research quality on group size

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Abstract

Academic research groups are treated as complex systems and their cooperative behaviour is analysed from a mathematical and statistical viewpoint. Contrary to the naive expectation that the quality of a research group is simply given by the mean calibre of its individual scientists, we show that intra-group interactions play a dominant role. Our model manifests phenomena akin to phase transitions which are brought about by these interactions, and which facilitate the quantification of the notion of critical mass for research groups. We present these critical masses for many academic areas. A consequence of our analysis is that overall research performance of a given discipline is improved by supporting medium-sized groups over large ones, while small groups must strive to achieve critical mass.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Neville Hunt for inspiring discussions as well as for help with the statistical analyses. We also thank Arnaldo Donoso, Christian von Ferber, Housh Mashhoudy and Andrew Snowdon for comments and discussions, as well as Claude Lecomte, Scientific Delegate at the AERES, for discussions on the work of that agency.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Applied Mathematics Research Centre, Coventry University, Coventry, CV1 5FB, England, UK

    R. Kenna

  2. Statistical Physics Group, Institut Jean Lamour, CNRS—Nancy Université—UPVM, B.P. 70239, Vandoeuvre les Nancy Cedex, 54506, France

    B. Berche

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  1. R. Kenna
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  2. B. Berche
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Correspondence to R. Kenna.

Additional information

B. Berche—Laboratoire associé au CNRS UMR 7198.

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Kenna, R., Berche, B. Critical mass and the dependency of research quality on group size. Scientometrics 86, 527–540 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-010-0282-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-010-0282-9

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