The role of geographical proximity in facilitating inter-regional or inter-organizational collaborations has been studied thoroughly in recent years. However, the effect of geographical proximity on forming scientific collaborations at the individual level still needs to be addressed. Using publication data in the field of artificial intelligence from 2001 to 2019, in this work, the effect of geographical proximity on the likelihood of forming future scientific collaborations among researchers is studied. In addition, the interaction between geographical and network proximities is examined to see whether network proximity can substitute geographical proximity in encouraging long-distance scientific collaborations. Employing conventional and machine learning techniques, our results suggest that geographical distance impedes scientific collaboration at the individual level despite the tremendous improvements in transportation and communication technologies during recent decades. Moreover, our findings show that the effect of network proximity on the likelihood of scientific collaboration increases with geographical distance, implying that network proximity can act as a substitute for geographical proximity.

翻译：近年来，地理邻近性在促进跨区域或跨组织合作中的作用已得到深入研究。然而，地理邻近性在个体层面形成科研合作的影响仍有待探讨。本研究利用2001年至2019年人工智能领域的出版物数据，分析了地理邻近性对研究者之间未来形成科研合作可能性的影响。此外，本文还考察了地理邻近性与网络邻近性之间的交互作用，以探究网络邻近性能否替代地理邻近性以促进远距离科研合作。通过运用传统统计方法与机器学习技术，我们的研究表明：尽管近几十年来交通与通信技术取得了巨大进步，地理距离仍在个体层面上阻碍着科研合作。进一步发现显示，网络邻近性对科研合作可能性的影响随地理距离的增加而增强，这意味着网络邻近性能够作为地理邻近性的替代机制。