Enhancing research and development: designing collaborative environments for innovation

Abstract

Work environments have previously been studied to identify the strategies,
structures and processes which increase the likelihood of creativity, innovation
and collaboration for productive workplaces. A number of perspectives have
emerged which identify social and cognitive factors known to contribute to or to
restrict innovation and collaboration.
Recently more attention has been given to designing physical environments to
encourage processes relevant to innovation such as creativity (McCoy & Evans,
2002) knowledge sharing (Hemlin, Allwood & Martin, 2008) and collaboration
(Bozeman & Corley, 2004). Some attention has been given specifically to
research and development environments (Boutellier et al, 2008) but little
integration of this research has occurred. In the context of the construction of new
purpose-built premises which will bring together under one roof separate public
sector agencies engaged in research and development in agriculture, natural
resource systems and the environment, this paper examines the extant literature
and develops initial propositions for research relevant to the transition,
collaboration and performance of research and development in new
organizational environments where traditional boundaries have been redrawn.