Please use this form to submit your study for inclusion into our database. It will be checked by a member of the Innovation Growth Lab team, who may be in contact to ask for more information. Your email address * Your name * Title * The name of the study Short summary Search costs continue to powerfully shape (and limit) the formation of collaborations between scientists. Formation of collaborations appears to be highly sensitive to information-rich face-to-face interactions, which existing communications technologies may not sufficiently substitute. A brief description of the project's goals and its current state Abstract <p>Scientists typically self-organize into teams, matching with others to collaborate in the production of new knowledge. We present the results of a field experiment conducted at Harvard Medical School to understand the extent to which search costs affect matching among scientific collaborators. We generated exogenous variation in search costs for pairs of potential collaborators by randomly assigning individuals to 90-minute structured information-sharing sessions as part of a grant funding opportunity for biomedical researchers. We estimate that the treatment increases the baseline probability of grant co-application of a given pair of researchers by 75% (increasing the likelihood of a pair collaborating from 0.16% to 0.28%), with effects higher among those in the same specialization. The findings indicate that matching between scientists is subject to considerable frictions, even in the case of geographically-proximate scientists working in the same institutional context with ample access to common information and funding opportunities.</p> The full abstract of the study, if available Links http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/REST_a_00676 Links to any published papers and related discussions Authors * Affiliations Academic and other institutes that the authors of the study are members of Delivery partner Organisations involved in delivering the trial, if appropriate Year Year Year199419951996199719981999200020012002200320042005200620072008200920102011201220132014201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026 Month MonthJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec Day Day12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031 Journal Journal publishing the study, if available Publication stage * Working Paper Published Ongoing Research Forthcoming Discussion Paper Research theme * Entrepreneurship Innovation Business Growth Country Country or countries where this study took place. Topics What sort of topics does the study cover? Sample attributes Hypotheses / research question How do scientists self-organize into research teams, and what is the role of search costs in the formation of scientific teams? Sample Trial population and sample selection Faculty and researchers from Harvard University and its 17 affiliated hospitals and institutions (all operate as distinct organisations). Harvard Catalyst grant programme, in collaboration with the researchers, generated 471 Statement of Interest applications in the initial call. 435 applicants were invited to attend an advanced imaging symposium and thus proceed in the grant application process. Final commitments brought the total number of participants to 402. Participants were randomly allocated to a break-out room of 30-40 people in advance so that a random subset of all possible pairs among all participants would receive the treatment. Number of treatment groups Size of treatment groups 6,702 scientist pairs Size of control group Unit of analysis Clustered? Yes No Cluster details Trial attributes Treatment description Participants were prepared to discuss their idea with other participants in break-out rooms of 30-40 people. Each participant was randomly allocated in advance so that a random subset of all possible pairs among all participants would receive the treatment. 3 symposia were held on sequential nights and were identically structured with 4 break-out rooms per night. Participants were also randomised across nights. Break-out sessions were composed of two periods of 45 minutes each. Sessions provided participants to share their ideas in the form of posters, which were intended to foster sharing of information among participants. Participants within each break-out room were randomly split into two groups. Participants from Group 1 were asked to stand by their poster during the first period, while Group 2 participants circulated. The two groups then switched roles during period two. The placement of each individual's poster in the room was also randomly chosen in advance. Shortly after the symposia, participants were invited to submit applications for the grants, and were required to include at least one co-investigator. Rounds of data collection Baseline data collection and method Data was collected from 3 sources: Registration data, Publications, and Location Geocoding. Registration data included biographical information and whether the participant was an imager or clinician. Harvard Catalyst Profiles contained publication records to know if scientist pairs had been previous co-authors. Location geocoding for the offices of participants provided geographic distances between pairs of participants. Data collection method and data collected Evaluation Outcome variables <p>Collaboration between pairs.</p> Results <p>Randomly varied search costs induced by the experimental design yielded a significant increase in incidence of collaboration on subsequent grant proposals by 75% relative to the baseline probability of collaboration between pairs of researchers. The magnitude is equivalent to about a third of the effect of working in the same hospital or clinical area. Therefore, the effect is large, despite the small and focused nature of the treatment. It is notable that any effect is detected in the context of scientists who are already geographically proximate and working within a common institutional context, where online resources and information systems already exist to facilitate collaboration.</p> Intervention costs Not available. Cost benefit ratio Reference Boudreau, K. J., Brady, T., Ganguli, I., Gaule, P., Guinan, E., Hollenberg, A., & Lakhani, K. R. (2017). A field experiment on search costs and the formation of scientific collaborations. Review of Economics and Statistics, 99(4), 565-576. Citation for use in academic references
