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‘Disruptive’ science: in-person teams make more breakthroughs than remote groups

Analysis of millions of papers shows that farflung collaborators produce fewer foundational discoveries than groups working together in person.
  1. David Adam
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Working in remote teams can hurt innovation, according to a study1 that suggests that researchers based at the same site make more breakthrough discoveries. Remote collaborators can benefit from greater collective knowledge, the research points out, but because such teams don’t integrate fully, they are less likely to engage in conceptual tasks. That makes them better suited to make only incremental progress at the expense of disruptive discoveries.

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Nature 624, 20 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-03618-x

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 05 December 2023: An earlier version of this story misspelt Marina Schröder’s surname.

References

  1. Lin, Y., Frey, C. B. & Wu, L. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06767-1 (2023).

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  2. Park, M., Leahey, E. & Funk, R. J. Nature 613, 138–144 (2023).

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  3. Watson, J. D. & Crick, F. H. Nature 171, 737–738 (1953).

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  5. Grözinger, N., Irlenbusch, B., Laske, K & Schröder, M. J. Econ. Behav. Org. 180, 201–218 (2020).

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