The Geographical and Institutional Proximity of Scientific Collaboration Networks

Collaboration and the exchange of knowledge is supposed to be eased by geographical proximity because of the tacit character of knowledge. Recently a number of scholars criticized this view on geographical proximity for being oversimplified and argue that the precise role of geographical proximity for knowledge exchange and collaboration still remains unclear. This paper analyses the role of geographical proximity for scientific research collaboration in science based technologies between universities, firms and other research institutions. The hypothesis that is tested is that collaboration between different kinds of organizations is geographically more localized than collaboration between the same kinds of organizations due to institutional proximity. Using co-publications as an indicator for collaboration, this hypothesis is confirmed. JEL Classification: R12, , O18, O31 Key-words: collaboration, proximity, networks 1 Correspondence address: Roderik Ponds , Netherlands Institute for Spatial Research (RPB), P.O.Box 30314, 2500 GH, The Hague, The Netherlands, [email protected]