Depending on which field in Academia you're in, this could change. Several years ago, I was the webmaster for the Hearing Research Center at Boston University.

Depending on which field in Academia you're in, this could change. Several years ago, I was the webmaster for the Hearing Research Center at Boston University. It's a collection of 20 or so labs, each run by a professor, with associated grad students, etc.. The first thing I noticed was that most of the researchers were universally and remarkably happy people. (I had come from a background in Physics, which had more angst.) Then I noticed a huge number of collaborations as I was compiling the professors online CVs, and a huge number of publications. Before a certain date, for the older professors, there were individual authorships, but not after. This was a tantalizing mystery. The department hosted an annual party for hearing researchers worldwide, and I hung out with the diehards at the end of the night - the old timers - and asked them what the story was. It's fascinating. Those who are department heads now were all in school together at MIT thirty years ago and they all had the same professor who sat them down and told them that research didn't have to be competitive and backbiting. While these people were grad students, they decided to take control of how science would be practiced in their discipline. Hearing research doesn't get anything like the same kind of grant money that, for example, vision does. In order to advance the discipline the most efficient way, with limited funds, they COULDN'T afford to duplicate research. They need to share data, yet give researchers the freedom to use the data differently if they have different ideas. So patiently, these people took over their discipline, and groomed their grad students into the culture where people are rewarded based on sharing and collaboration. Perhaps there's a little less thunder, but people are publishing very frequently and the discipline is advancing much more quickly than it would have otherwise. They took control and set up the reward system differently. Did I mention that these scientists were some of the happiest people I've ever met?