Abstract:
Scientific laboratories in many disciplines have become large and complex. In high energy physics (HEP), laboratories often have hundreds of in-house members, while the number of collaborators working on experiments is measured in thousands. The question of optimization of such laboratories has become of practical importance. The prevailing approach in social epistemology of science was based on modelling abstract hypothetical scenarios (e.g., Kitcher 1993, Zollman 2010). In the presentation we will argue that the appropriate approach to optimization of team structures in science is field dependent. Specifically, we will present a data-driven study of team organization in HEP and a hypothesis-driven study of team structures in biology. Benefits of a data-driven approach are the unambiguous interpretation of the results, the predictive power, and the corrective potential when it comes to real-life decisions in science. On the other hand, it is questionable whether the citation metrics is an informative parameter for determining a project success in a data-driven analysis of a specific field. In HEP, the consensus about the results is relatively quick and stable over long periods of time (decades). The reason for this is the regular inductive behaviour of the field, which postulates the conservation principles as the core ones. Thus, the inductive behaviour of the field guarantees the successful and meaningful applicability of data-driven analyses based on citation metrics. Since this is not the case in contemporary biology, a good approach for optimizing team structures in that field is building empirically informed agent-based models.
Speaker:
Dr. Vlasta Sikimić is a researcher at the Weizsäcker Center for Responsible Science of the University of Tübingen. Previously, she worked at the Institute for Philosophy of the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade and at the Laboratory for Experimental Psychology of the same faculty. She holds a Ph.D. degree in Philosophy from the University of Belgrade. She obtained a Master of Science in Logic degree from the ILLC, University of Amsterdam. Vlasta is active in professional associations. For instance, she is currently the Co-Chair of the Program Committee of the East European Network for Philosophy of Science Conference and the Chair of the Organizing Committee of the next EPSA conference to be held in Belgrade in 2023.
Vlasta’s research focus is on formal and empirical philosophy of science, science policy, and logic. She works on data-driven approaches to optimizations of scientific reasoning. More information about her research activities is available on the website: https://vlastasikimic.com