BlueSky Thinking Summary

The case brought before us by Hyejin Youn thus creates a stir in the consideration that in-person proximity drives effective collaboration and knowledge creation—a big no in post-pandemic times, with isolations and social distancing becoming the new normal, not to mention remote work.

The research processed 17 million scientific publications over a period of 45 years.

In their research, Youn and Frank van der Wouden note that researchers derive much more new knowledge through local collaborations than through remote ones.

This is because face-to-face interactions facilitate nuanced learning through gestures, whiteboard brainstorming, and shared specialized equipment—critical for grappling with complex, emerging knowledge.

In fact, although technological advances have made it easier to collaborate at distance, the study shows that local collaborations have indeed decreased over time, with collaborators increasingly far apart geographically.

The findings suggest that early-career scholars and those in fields relying on specialized equipment benefit most from local interactions.

Much of the future of work will lie in ensuring that organizations are geographically located to find the right balance between remote and in-person collaboration—in an organization, the key to innovation and knowledge exchange.