2025 Big Team Science Conference

Every year, CONNECT partners come together to host the Big Team Science Conference (BTSCON), a multidisciplinary gathering of researchers, funders, and stakeholders to discuss advancements, challenges, and future opportunities related to large scientific collaborations.

Several of our CONNECT partner organizations and networks recently presented their amazing work at the 4th annual BTSCON, held virtually on October 6-8, 2025.


Check out the following talks, symposiums, and unconferences hosted by various CONNECT partners:

Investigating Overimitation in Dogs: The ManyDogs 2 Project 🐕
Presenter: Karoline Gerwisch
Additional authors: ManyDogsProject, Louise Mackie, Ludwig Huber

Hold that fin! A big-team dive into fish self-control 🐟
Presenter: Laurent Prétôt
Additional authors: Benjamin C. Bluck, María J. Cabrera-Álvarez, Yseult Héjja-Brichard, Kyndal Irwin, Tyrone Lucon-Xiccato, Cait Newport, Maria Santacà, Levi Storks

Include, scale, and reach out: Challenges ahead and learning from ManyX projects
Presenter: Indranil Dutta, Drew Altschul
Additional authors: ManyBabies, ManyPrimates, ManyLanguages

ManyPrimates 3: Inference by Exclusion 🐵
Presenter: Drew Altschul
Additional authors: ManyPrimates

The ManyBirds Project: Updates and Future Plans 🦜
Presenters: Jimena Lois Milevicich
Additional authors: Rachael Miller, Vedrana Šlipogor, Kai R. Caspar, Carl Soulsbury, Claudia Mettke-Hofmann, Megan Lambert, and the ManyBirds Project

ManyBabies 2, 3, & 4 symposium 👶
Presenters: Anna Krämer, Kelsey Lucca, Catia Ferreira De Oliveira, Tobias Schuwerk
Additional authors: ManyBabies 2, ManyBabies 3, & ManyBabies4

Big-Team Science Resource Corner: Improving access to research and teaching materials 📖
Presenters: Aleksandra Lazić, Pooja Kulkarni, Alma Jeftic, Karla Garduño-Realivazquez, Nadia Corral-Frías, Brendan Ch’ng, Sergio Barbosa, Federico Alegría

All recordings from the conference are uploaded to YouTube at this link.


In addition, the CONNECT partnership’s four specialized working groups hosted hack-a-thons focused on our three core initiatives:

Toward a metascience of large-scale collaboration: Developing tools and metrics to evaluate Big Team Science workflows
Leads: Krista Byers-Heinlein and Nicolás Alessandroni

What do we need to improve large acale collaborations? Developing infrastructure and tools for Big Team Science
Leads: Melanie Soderstrom and Francis Yuen

Promoting Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in the Big Team Social Sciences
Leads: Nadia Corral-Frias, Alma Jeftic, and Kiley Hamlin

Big Team Science training and knowledge mobilization resources: What exists and what do we need?
Leads: Michael Frank and Heidi Baumgartner

Tags: btscon event