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Does Collocation Inform the Impact of Collaboration?

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  • Kyungjoon Lee
  • John S Brownstein
  • Richard G Mills
  • Isaac S Kohane

Abstract

Background: It has been shown that large interdisciplinary teams working across geography are more likely to be impactful. We asked whether the physical proximity of collaborators remained a strong predictor of the scientific impact of their research as measured by citations of the resulting publications. Methodology/Principal Findings: Articles published by Harvard investigators from 1993 to 2003 with at least two authors were identified in the domain of biomedical science. Each collaboration was geocoded to the precise three-dimensional location of its authors. Physical distances between any two coauthors were calculated and associated with corresponding citations. Relationship between distance of coauthors and citations for four author relationships (first-last, first-middle, last-middle, and middle-middle) were investigated at different spatial scales. At all sizes of collaborations (from two authors to dozens of authors), geographical proximity between first and last author is highly informative of impact at the microscale (i.e. within building) and beyond. The mean citation for first-last author relationship decreased as the distance between them increased in less than one km range as well as in the three categorized ranges (in the same building, same city, or different city). Such a trend was not seen in other three author relationships. Conclusions/Significance: Despite the positive impact of emerging communication technologies on scientific research, our results provide striking evidence for the role of physical proximity as a predictor of the impact of collaborations.

Suggested Citation

  • Kyungjoon Lee & John S Brownstein & Richard G Mills & Isaac S Kohane, 2010. "Does Collocation Inform the Impact of Collaboration?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(12), pages 1-6, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0014279
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0014279
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Craig, Iain D. & Plume, Andrew M. & McVeigh, Marie E. & Pringle, James & Amin, Mayur, 2007. "Do open access articles have greater citation impact?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 239-248.
    2. Richard Redon & Shumpei Ishikawa & Karen R. Fitch & Lars Feuk & George H. Perry & T. Daniel Andrews & Heike Fiegler & Michael H. Shapero & Andrew R. Carson & Wenwei Chen & Eun Kyung Cho & Stephanie Da, 2006. "Global variation in copy number in the human genome," Nature, Nature, vol. 444(7118), pages 444-454, November.
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    Cited by:

    1. Qing Zhang & Hong Yu, 2014. "Computational Approaches for Predicting Biomedical Research Collaborations," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(11), pages 1-13, November.

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