A recent study suggests that working in remote teams may hinder breakthrough innovations in research, as researchers based at the same physical location tend to make more significant discoveries. While remote collaboration allows for greater collective knowledge, teams working at a distance are less likely to engage in conceptual tasks, limiting their ability to achieve disruptive breakthroughs.
The study, led by Carl Frey, an economist at the University of Oxford, analyzed 20 million research articles published between 1960 and 2020 and 4 million patent applications submitted between 1976 and 2020 worldwide.
The researchers evaluated the research team output by examining affiliations, authors’ geographic distribution, and publications’ disruptive nature using a metric called the D score. The D score ranges from -1 to 1, with higher scores indicating more disruptive work. The study aimed to assess the impact of remote collaboration on research productivity and innovation.
Over the past 50 years, the average distance between members of research teams increased significantly, from 100 kilometers to nearly 1,000 kilometers for papers and 250 kilometers to 750 kilometers for patents. The study found that the probability of disruption, defined by a D score greater than zero, decreased when collaboration distance exceeded 600 kilometers, falling from 28% to 22% for papers and 67% to 55% for patents.
While remote collaboration offers benefits such as collective knowledge and diverse perspectives, the study highlights that co-located teams are more likely to achieve foundational and disruptive discoveries. Breakthrough innovations, such as transformative technological leaps, were less common in remote collaborations. The findings challenge the expectation that remote collaboration would lead to significant advancements, as observed in the transition from horse-drawn carts to automobiles.
The study’s results suggest that factors like communication intensity and the challenge of expressing tacit ideas may contribute to the limited success of remote teams in achieving groundbreaking discoveries. The study emphasizes the need for further research to explore the specific dynamics that impact innovation in remote collaboration scenarios.
As remote work continues to be a prevalent mode of operation, understanding the nuances of its impact on creativity and breakthrough innovations becomes crucial for organizations and research institutions.
