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I am unsure regarding this usage of 'both'. A friend of mine told me it is not correct.

Both win in this case, the students who learned a new technique and science with more replications.

Could someone check it for me? Why is that a mistake?

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    Usually "both" refers to 2 items (persons or things). In the above sentence, item 2 is "science" (singular) and item(s) 1 is "students" (plural). Therefore, I don't recommend such construction.
    – Graffito
    Commented Nov 28, 2015 at 13:54
  • 'Both groups win in this case: the students who learned a new technique, and the scientific community ...' is better coordinated. 'Science wins' is presumably a metonymic usage of science; I suppose the expression might mean 'the body of scientific knowledge is extended'.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Nov 28, 2015 at 14:18
  • What about "Both win in this case, the group of students who learned a new technique and science with more replications."
    – Guilherme Duarte
    Commented Nov 28, 2015 at 16:03

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The main sentence and the subordinate clause can swap places without changing the meaning, so I would say it is grammatical. However, I think the sentence is a bit difficult to parse (but I don't have English as first language)

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