Word.ws English Dictionary

small science

small science noun: traditional scientific research that is conducted by individual researchers or small teams and funded by academic or scientific institutions.

Noun

small science (uncountable)

  1. Traditional scientific research that is conducted by individual researchers or small teams and funded by academic or scientific institutions.
    • But, particularly in this Oversight Hearing on NSF, it is important to take note of essential characteristics of small science and of the benefit of such projects to the entire scientific enterprise. Small science projects are more apt to be scrutinized at every stage by peers, as they are...1991, Robert M. Gavin, “Testimony”, in Fiscal Year 1992 and 1993 National Science Foundation Authorization, page 108
    • However, when juxtaposed to other traditions, big science is unlike small science, which by definition is less ensnared in bureaucratic turf protecting, institution building, and financial and intellectual reward incentives.1996, Laura Nader, Naked Science: Anthropological Inquiry Into Boundaries, Power, and Knowledge, →ISBN
    Synonyms:
    little science

Examples of small science in a sentence

  • But, particularly in this Oversight Hearing on NSF, it is important to take note of essential characteristics of small science and of the benefit of such projects to the entire scientific enterprise.1991, Robert M. Gavin, “Testimony”, in Fiscal Year 1992 and 1993 National Science Foundation Authorization, page 108:
  • There is a story, possibly true, that illustrates forcefully the difference between contemporary big science and traditional, small science – science as it used to be before World War II.2013, J. Agassi, Science and Culture, →ISBN, page 359:

Synonyms of small science

Antonyms

Origin of small science

By contrast to Big Science.

Questions about small science

What does small science mean?
Small science means traditional scientific research that is conducted by individual researchers or small teams and funded by academic or scientific institutions.
How do you use small science in a sentence?
But, particularly in this Oversight Hearing on NSF, it is important to take note of essential characteristics of small science and of the benefit of such projects to the entire scientific enterprise.
What part of speech is small science?
Small science is a noun.

Words near small science in the dictionary

  1. small rooms
  2. small saphenous vein
  3. small saphenous veins
  4. small scale
  5. Small Scale Integration
  6. small science
  7. small screen
  8. small seal script
  9. small shellies
  10. small skipper
  11. small skippers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: small science (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “small science.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/small_science. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.