Optimal research team composition: data envelopment analysis of Fermilab experiments Slobodan Perovic ´ 1 • Sandro Radovanovic ´ 2 • Vlasta Sikimic ´ 3 • Andrea Berber 1 Received: 5 October 2015 / Published online: 27 April 2016 Ó Akade ´miai Kiado ´, Budapest, Hungary 2016 Abstract We employ data envelopment analysis on a series of experiments performed in Fermilab, one of the major high-energy physics laboratories in the world, in order to test their efficiency (as measured by publication and citation rates) in terms of variations of team size, number of teams per experiment, and completion time. We present the results and analyze them, focusing in particular on inherent connections between quantitative team composition and diversity, and discuss them in relation to other factors contributing to scientific production in a wider sense. Our results concur with the results of other studies across the sciences showing that smaller research teams are more productive, and with the conjecture on curvilinear dependence of team size and efficiency. Keywords Social epistemology of science  Team size  Team diversity  Data envelopment analysis  High energy physics  Fermilab Introduction When it comes to determining the optimal distribution of human resources of a research group with respect to its performance, a number of diverse investigations have been conducted in various fields, e.g. psychology (Jackson 1996; Kozlowski and Bell 2003), economics (Page 2011), and philosophy (Kitcher 1990; Zollman 2007). Various tools of scientometric research have also been applied in the study of the structure of scientific research teams and their performance across the sciences (Milojevic ´ 2014; Abbasi et al. & Slobodan Perovic ´ perovicslobodan@gmail.com 1 Department of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia 2 Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia 3 Department of Formal Languages, Technische Universita ¨t Wien, Vienna, Austria 123 Scientometrics (2016) 108:83–111 DOI 10.1007/s11192-016-1947-9