Small Science

Small Science refers (in contrast to Big Science) to science performed in a smaller scale, such as by individuals, small teams or within community projects.

Bodies, which fund research, such as for example the National Science Foundation, DARPA or the EU with its Framework programs tend to fund larger scale research projects. Reasons for that are the idea, that ambitious research needs significant resources devoted for its execution and the reduction of administrative and overhead costs on the funding body side.

The importance of Small Science

Small Science helps define the goals and directions of large scale scientific projects. In turn, results of large scale projects are often best synthesized and interpreted by the long-term efforts of the Small Science community. In addition, because Small Science is typically done at universities, it provides students and young researchers with an integral involvement in defining and solving scientific problems. Hence, small science can be seen as an important factor for bringing together science and society.

The American Geophysical Union stresses the importance of small science in a position statement. [The Need for Balance between Small and Large Science, available at http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/positions/smallsci.shtml]

Examples of Small Science results with high impact

Many examples from the history of science justify that results of Small Science can have enormous impacts:

* Galois theory, one of the foundational theories of abstract algebra was developed by Évariste Galois within just weeks
* Albert Einstein developed his theory of Special relativity as a hobby while working full-time in a patent office

In fact, most of the research done before World War II can be viewed as Small Science.

References