Are research schools necessary? Contrasting models of 20th century research at Yale led by Ross Granville Harrison, Grace E. Pickford and G. Evelyn Hutchinson.

This paper compares andcontrasts three groups that conductedbiological research at Yale University duringoverlapping periods between 1910 and l970. YaleUniversity proved important as a site for thisresearch. The leaders of these groups were RossGranville Harrison, Grace E. Pickford, and G.Evelyn Hutchinson, and their members includedboth graduate students and more experiencedscientists. All produced innovative research,including the opening of new subfields inembryology, endocrinology and ecologyrespectively, over a long period of time.Harrison's is shown to have been a classicresearch school; Pickford's and Hutchinson'swere not. Pickford's group was successful inspite of her lack of departmental orinstitutional position or power. Hutchinson andhis graduate and post-graduate students wereextremely productive but in diverse areas ofecology. His group did not have one focusedarea of research or use one set of researchtools. The paper concludes that new models forresearch groups are needed, especially forthose, like Hutchinson's, that included muchfield research.