On productivity, big multicenter grants, and paper-mills: the pursuit of an academic career leads to scientific progress?.
We are in the time where big multi-centre projects with an ever-increasing number of scientists involved seem to multiply, and single scientist projects seem to die, apart from the happy island of ERC funding in Europe (probably NSF career funding in US?). I believe that with ERC funding and the direct call of ERC winners some European universities have taken a path of excellence to follow, while on multicentre big money projects they are less effective.