Dear Hanno/Dear All,

The bucket is your brain, the water you poor into the bucket represents new projects/new ideas. You can fill up the bucket until a certain level.. And of course, because of diversity, some people have bigger buckets to handle more water than other people, and of course the quality of the water may also differ. 

This is absolutely right. Especially, when one is a well-known name in her/his area and work in a leading institution, one gets so many offers and propositions, which becomes difficult to refuse. Some of these proposals are very attractive too, which are difficult to refuse. This tends to put the existing engagements and projects in cold storage. And, the resultant delay takes place. Also, there are so many peers in other institutions who need some help related to theses examination, project evaluation, candidate evaluation, research proposal evaluation. All these put a great pressure on the scientists. 

Dear Marcel,

Dear All,

The title of your thread may be right. The best example for it may be Leonardo da Vinci who was so many-sided and talented that he remained but very few time to paint more pictures or realise his inventions. Working in too many projects at the same time can decrease the velocity and efficiency of scientific work. However, I think that lack of research facilities and scientific projects, no opportunity for working because of unfortunate mainstream preferences is a much terrible situation.

I´ve learnt a nice rule. Suppose the human brain can handle a certain measure of thoughts, the volume, it´s very clear then:

broadness times depth = constant volume.

So working in many projects diminuishes the depth of your work.

Of course the volume differs from scientist to scientist, but for a single person, the rule of constant volume will give an orientation.

Dear Hanno/Dear All,

The bucket is your brain, the water you poor into the bucket represents new projects/new ideas. You can fill up the bucket until a certain level.. And of course, because of diversity, some people have bigger buckets to handle more water than other people, and of course the quality of the water may also differ. 

Dear Kamal,

But then the problem is how to define a feasible project. One project might involve all aspects of science. One project might involve few or many people, etc....

The definition of feasible research projects should indicate practical limits in individual research activity to avoid that potential believers, like decision-makers judging research projects, would force scientists to tackle problems that are perceived as ‘exciting’ or ‘urgent’, but that are not reasonable or unfeasible from a practical or logistic point of view?

There are different categories of researchers.

A class of researchers includes those who like to conduct the research themselves with full devotion coming out with results based on the best of their capabilities. These people are constrained and like to handle a minimum number of projects with which they can do full justice.

Another class of people are capable of managing funds from various sponsoring agencies and they assign the execution of the projects to subordinates. Such researchers can handle a large number of projects as they don't  mind not being able to make their personal in-depth contribution to each individual project while still enjoying the reputation of having undertaken so many projects.

With the increasing number of students/scholars, the faculty members (not increasing in the same proportion as students/scholars) are loaded with larger number of projects to be supervised. 

Depending on whether the supervisor wishes or not to make a personal contribution, his/her efficiency may or may not be influenced.

Dear all, yes, the increasing of the number of the project may led bto less efficeincy. However, there is not direct correlation. mainly the issue is dependent from the role of the scientists in one or other project.

And type of the project as well. If scientist do experimental work, involvemnet in many project definitely led to less efficiency. But in some case, espessially if  top scientist with high experience in the fileld, only participated in discuusion of the results and future planing became very usefull for the project development and, actually, does not take too much time and attention. 

Efficiency is to be specified/reckoned in terms of the specific task to be assigned/performed/ delivered/expected... and is defined, in general, as:

Efficiency = (Output / Input) x 100

where, the 'output' (expected) and the 'input' are to be decided based on the specific job responsibility (in the present context, of a Scientist).

A Scientist starting his career at the lowest level keeps moving up in the ladder occupying successive higher positions with different duties assigned/to be performed at various steps.

For instance, in a particular domain the successive positions include 'Junior Research Fellow', 'Senior Research Fellow', 'Junior Scientist', 'Senior Scientist', 'Principal Scientist', 'Chief Scientist', "Project Coordinator", Research funding executives etc. Job responsibilities assigned to various Scientists working at these levels may range from administration, planning, funding, monitoring, execution, assistance etc. with correspondingly different ‘inputs’ provided and ‘outputs‘ expected.

Depending on the nature of job and capability of an individual Scientist, a person can handle a certain minimum number of projects most efficiently. This number of projects may differ for different levels and even for individual Scientists working at the same level based on an individual’s handling capability.

Thus, while principally the statement in the question is right (within certain range), it may not be possible to pin point/generalize/specify a number of Projects that can be handled by a Scientist. In fact, within certain limit, an increase in the number of projects may enhance the efficiency of a Scientist as the full capability of an individual can be realized at a certain minimum/threshold workload else the person may remain underutilized.