Colocation and scientific collaboration
Subtitle: evidence from a field experiment
By: Kevin Boudreau, Ina Ganguli, Tony Hollenberg, Karim Lakhani, Tom Brady, Patrick Gaule, Eva Guinan
Contributors: Lakhani, Karim R.; Harvard Business School
Edition: Revised edition
Series: Working paper / Harvard Business School -- 13-023; Working paper (Harvard Business School) -- 13-023
Publisher: Harvard Business School
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Boston ]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 28
Description: We present the results of a field experiment conducted within the Harvard Medical School system of hospitals and research centers to understand how colocation impacts the likelihood of scientific collaboration. We introduce exogenous colocation and face-to-face interactions for a random subset of biomedical researchers responding to an opportunity to apply for a research grant. While the overall baseline likelihood of any two researchers collaborating is small, we find that random colocation significantly increases the likelihood of pair-level co-application by almost 70%. The effect of exogenous colocation on subsequent collaboration was greater for previous coauthors, pairs including a woman, and pairs researching similar clinical areas. Our results suggest that matching between scientists may be subject to considerable frictions -- even among those in relatively close geographic proximity and in the same organizational system. At the same time, even a brief and focused intervention facilitating face-to-face interactions can provide information that impacts the formation of scientific collaborations.
Notes: "Revised September 2012" -- Publisher's website.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 20-21).