Large scale research programmes and networks are an increasingly prominent feature of global change and sustainability research. They aim to bring together researchers with different topical, disciplinary and geographical backgrounds around common issues of concern. Significant human and financial resources are invested in global research programmes and networks. Nevertheless, we know little about how these coordination mechanisms contribute to collaboration or the extent to which they manage to live up to high expectations. Addressing this gap, the current article combines a literature review and scientometric analysis of two large scale programmes in global change research in order to address the question ‘what does science coordination achieve?’ Insights from this study are relevant for identifying possible bottlenecks of science coordination as well as potentials for improved global research systems that support interdisciplinary and international collaboration.

大规模的研究计划和网络是全球变化和可持续性研究日益突出的特征。他们的目的是将具有不同主题，学科和地理背景的研究人员聚集到共同关心的问题上。在全球研究计划和网络上投入了大量的人力和财力。但是，我们对这些协调机制如何促进协作或它们在多大程度上能够实现很高的期望知之甚少。解决这一差距，当前文章结合了对全球变化研究中两个大型计划的文献综述和科学计量分析，以解决“科学协调能实现什么？”这一问题。这项研究的见识与确定科学协调的可能瓶颈以及改进支持跨学科和国际合作的全球研究系统的潜力有关。