Media release

From: Springer Nature

Social science: Remote collaborations reduce breakthrough discoveries *IMAGE* 

Caption: Across the darkened waves of collaboration, bright lights in cities show ideas “fusing” and “lighting up” locally, powered by on-the-ground teams. While remote connections spread these illuminations, they often fall short in sparking such brilliance themselves. “GEOGRAPHY MATTERS” reminds us that true innovation often has a hometown.
Credit: Yiling Lin, visualizing sixty years of data from 20 million research articles across 3,562 cities

Download: High resolution (385.7 KB)

The rise in remote collaboration between scientists is associated with a reduction in breakthrough discoveries (disruptive discoveries that open up new avenues for progress) relative to those of teams that work together in person at the same site. The findings are reported in an analysis of 20 million research articles and 4 million patent applications, published in Nature this week.

The increasing availability of technology for online collaboration has allowed researchers to connect with dispersed teams, bringing together knowledge and expertise. However, recent evidence suggests that despite increasing opportunities for collaborations, ideas that disrupt the state of science or technology (rather than building on existing literature) are getting harder to find.

Yiling Lin, Carl Frey, Lingfei Wu and colleagues evaluated the effects of a switch from onsite collaboration (team members within the same city) to remote collaboration (with members spread between two or more cities) on the outputs of research teams. They analysed 20 million research articles published between 1960 and 2020 and 4 million patent applications submitted between 1976 and 2020 across the globe. In particular, they looked at the affiliations and geographic range of authors and contributors, and measured output according to how disruptive it was. The authors show that across all fields and team sizes, researchers in remote teams were less likely to make breakthrough discoveries than were their onsite counterparts. However, remote collaboration may have some benefits, such as bringing together different specialists, which helps to improve data analysis.

Although remote working brings together more collective knowledge than might be possible in one site, it can be harder for teams to integrate efficiently. The authors find that scientists in remote teams are less likely to engage in conceptual tasks, such as generating new research ideas, than are researchers in onsite teams. Increasing trends toward remote collaborations are likely to favour incremental innovation at the expense of disruptive discoveries, the authors conclude.