Nearer, better
Absence makes your heart grow fonder, but close quarters may boost your career. According to new research by scientists at Harvard Medical School, the physical proximity of researchers, especially between the first and last author on published papers, strongly correlates with the impact of their work. “Despite all of the profound advances in information technology, such as video conferencing, we found that physical proximity still matters for research productivity and impact,” says Isaac Kohane, the Lawrence J. Henderson Professor of Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Boston and director of the Countway Library of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. The research was published in the Dec. 15 issue of PLoS ONE. Given that the Internet and social networks enable people to collaborate remotely, the researchers investigated whether proximity corresponded to the scientific impact of research as measured by citations of resulting publications. As part of the collocation-collaboration, or CoCo, project, Kohane and colleagues analyzed life sciences articles published...