16 November 2009
By Sarah Davies
Some years ago, after almost a decade living in London, I took a job in the North East and upped sticks and moved. I can’t say this was a straightforward transition: inevitably, after a long period in one place, you have ties to it that can be painful to rearrange. Identity is, I believe, to some extent linked to location, and for a long time it felt strange to walk along streets which had no accompanying patina of memories.
Such relocation – and dislocation – is, of course, par for the course for many contract researchers, and at least, unlike many, I was still in the same country. But my London-to-the-North transition also affected my academic life. As well as getting to know new colleagues and new university systems, there was another new thing to get used to. In pseudo-scientific style, let’s call it ‘institutional density’.
In London, there were tens, maybe hundreds, of universities, colleges, research institutes, learned societies and academic organisations within easy reach. I was spoiled for choice, and didn’t limit myself to the institution I was based at: a little UCL here, some Goldsmiths there, occasional titbits from the Wellcome Trust. In contrast, there are a total of five universities spread throughout England’s North East, and – Newcastle and Northumbria excepted – travelling between them requires significantly more time and effort than jumping on a tube. Suddenly, your institutional home becomes much more important.
This isn’t a complaint, more an observation: popping along to seminars or meeting colleagues for coffee wasn’t as easy as it had been. Inevitably, this must have had an effect on my work. I would hazard a guess that my ties to my immediate colleagues are greater, and that I look more creatively for ways to make connections inside my institution, than when I was in London.
Have others experienced this? What are the pros and cons of different ‘institutional densities’? And – more to the point – can I write this new term up as a grand hypothesis that will bring me fame and fortune?
Tennie Videler16 November 2009 at 02:07 PM
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Hi, I love the idea of institutional density. I'd like to propose that it is even more complicated than you propose (thereby making it more likely to attract funding etc surely). The other proposed aspect is culture: whether there is a culture of collaboration and sharing between local institutions. Having once (a long time ago) moved from Norwich to Glasgow, I really noticed the increase in density. The scottish protein researchers felt like a close knit community, despite the fact that distances must have been as big as those between say Norwich and London or Cambridge. When I then moved to Cambridge the density was upped even more and I agree it was very inspiring. So I think actively forging ties with other departments and institutions is what researchers themselves can do to increase institutional density....
Simon Smith17 November 2009 at 12:05 AM
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I worked at Paisley for seven years, and within my subject area there was a very active research network between colleagues at the four universities in and around Glasgow (Glasgow, Paisley, Strathclyde and Caledonian), and I did notice the decline in 'institutional density' when I moved first to Salford, then to Leeds. Whether it prompted me to value or work on my ties to intra-departmental/institutional colleagues to a greater extent, I'm not at all sure! My networking has always tended to be quite closely related to the projects I'm working on, many of which have involved international collaboration, and I think that's has tended to dilute the importance of local 'institutional density'. Don't forget to factor virtual ties into your grand hypothesis ;-)
Matthew Salois17 November 2009 at 10:03 AM
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Sarah, it sounds like you are on to a great research idea! Let me put a little economics spin on your thoughts. There is a concept in the urban economics literature called "economies of agglomeration" which describes the benefits firms (i.e., businesses, universities, etc.) obtain when they locate near each other. The basic premise is that the production costs of a commodity (e.g., automobiles, textiles, education, and even research) decline substantially as firms cluster together in close proximity. The costs of production fall for two main reasons. First, firms can economize on their use of resources, such as sharing the same suppliers, thereby reducing costs. Second, firms can specialize in what they do best (rather than being generalists) according to comparative advantage and boost productivity. The greatest benefit of agglomeration, especially to universities and research institutes, is that it facilitates "knowledge spillovers" (forgive me, another economics term). Not only does this spur innovation within the university system, but the innovation "spills over" into the surrounding area, benefiting businesses and spurring economic growth. For the interested, I refer you to the seminal paper in this topic: "Local Geographic Spillovers between University Research and High Technology Innovations," Journal of Urban Economics, 42: 422-448 (1997).