Team Work in Engineering Research and Writing: A Reflection

One of the real pleasures of university life is doing research, development and writing within a team approach.  The idea, however, is not a new one.  It goes back to the medieval times. 

The medieval authors were so unoriginal that they hardly ever attempted to write anything unless someone had written before, and were so rebelliously and insistently original that they could hardly produce a page of any older work without transforming it by their own intensely visual and emotional imagination, turning the abstract into the concrete, quickening the static into turbulent movement, flooding whatever was colorless with scarlet and gold. They could no more leave their originals intact than we can leave our own drafts intact.  We always tinker and improve.  But in the middle ages you did that as cheerfully to other people’s work as to you own.  And the tinkering very often really improved them.

Although the current university culture promotes individualism, with rare exceptions, the consequence of individuality and independence is mediocrity.   Newton was right when he said:  “If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.”  

Alternatively the emphasis on innovation and the pressure to publish has created a distorted and unhealthy environment and a sense of false competence similar to the overconfident  conviction of an adolescent that his own village (or university) is the hub of the universe, and that it does everything in the only right way.

Unfortunately, the university system is far from being free from such negative influences and examples of this counter-productive behavior abound.

Those who insist on individualism [as a pretense for pride, prejudice or ambition] may be reminded that we tolerate it quite easily in another art.  A cathedral often contains Saxon, Norman, Early English and Perpendicular work.  The effect of the whole may be deeply satisfying.  Yet, we have no one artist to thank for it. None of the successive architects foresaw or intended it.   - - - It may be difficult to call a cathedral as we now have it a ‘work of art.’  - - - It is the work of men, though not of a man.

The same may apply for books and papers in electrical engineering.  Each reviewer may improve or correct (and of course misunderstand – as it has happened to many of us) his or her predecessor. And authorship is more voluntarily shared.

Is it possible for this culture of cooperation and team work to be more prevalent within the university system and repudiation of the counter-examples straightforwardly  implemented?

In my career I have been very fortunate to work and interact with a number of brilliant research colleagues  - - - and we have had much fun building upon previous concepts, developing new techniques, posing new questions, and proposing new applications - and always learning with each other.

Lately I have been working with time-varying decomposition of power system signals in the context of smart electric grids  - and finding fascinating how we are only making some small contributions (a few demolitions here and some minor constructions there).

Thus, be aware and skeptical of the so called experts on broad subjects  - - - I dread  them – because they are usually experts speaking and acting outside their areas of expertise (if any).

Team effort (as in a good football / soccer team) always works better.

Best regards,

Paulo

PS - Quotes in Italic are adapted from Studies in Medieval Literature, CSL