Death of distance in science? A gravity approach to research collaboration

One of the major transitions in recent scientific research is the rise of network theory motivating a variety of new research programmes in and across various disciplines. Economic geography has been no exception. The work on networks in economic geography can be divided into two types of research. First, there are studies on inter-firm networks and their impact on firm performance. For a large part, such studies have been carried out in the context of geographical clusters, which are often characterised by strong network relations (Uzzi, 1997). A second approach, an example of which is presented below, concerns the study of inter-regional networks and their impact on regional growth. Here, the unit of analysis are territories, typically sub-national regions. The interest in this topic stems from Castells (1996) and others who have argued that regional growth increasingly depends on a region's position in global networks rather than its specific local characteristics such as institutions, endowments and amenities ('space of flows' versus the 'space of places').