Dr Laurent Bergé, a post-doctoral researcher at the Centre for Research in Economics and Management (CREA), has won the Martin Beckmann RSAI Annual Award 2018 for his paper on “Network proximity in the geography of research collaboration”.
The award is presented by the Regional Science Association International (RSAI) for the best paper published in their flagship journal: Papers in Regional Science. The jury, including Janice Madden (University of Pennsylvania), Carlos Azzoni (University of São Paulo) and Erik Verhoef (VU Amsterdam), chose Dr Bergé’s paper’s for the originality of the topic and the important results achieved.
“Network proximity in the geography of research collaboration” introduces a new measure of inter-regional network proximity. Using data on European scientific co-publications in the field of chemistry, the paper addresses the questions of how network proximity influences the structure of inter-regional collaborations and how it interacts with geography. The paper explores the determinants of scientific collaborations across space and addresses the questions of how network proximity (e.g. having common collaborators) influences the structure of inter-regional collaborations and how it interacts with geography.
“The paper introduces a new theoretically grounded measure on inter-regional network proximity and uses data on European scientific co-publications to demonstrate that the proximity in the network is a substitute to geographical proximity,” Dr Bergé explained. “In other words, geographically distant actors benefit more from network proximity than actors at a short distance. Put into perspective, these findings vindicate public policies funding international collaborations. Indeed, such policies help reduce the network distance between geographically distant actors (even the ones not receiving funds), eventually facilitating new international collaborations beyond the initial funding.”
“Network proximity in the geography of research collaboration” was published in Papers in Regional Science, Volume 96, Issue 4.
The award was presented at the 58th ERSA Congress, hosted in Cork, Ireland, at the end of August.
Laurent Bergé joined CREA in August 2016, following a post-doc position at the University Paris Descartes. Dr Bergé completed his PhD in economics at the University of Bordeaux in December 2015.