Towards Scientific Leadership, 2nd Edition

6 Understanding how to build successful teams: creating synergy between people who trust each other

6.1 Modern science is teamwork

Modern research and development is teamwork. Unlike a century ago, one can hardly do anything alone. It is not at all uncommon to see scientific articles published by 10–20 authors, belonging to more than one academic laboratory, and often at different universities as well. In our own research, although positioned at the fundamental end of the spectrum, we have often fruitfully collaborated with research departments of large chemical companies, such as Shell in Amsterdam, SASOL in South Africa, and Synfuels China Technology in Beijing. Industrial researchers usually know the real problems and questions from experience, ...