All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
The Esprit Programme is the oldest and largest of the European Commission’s research and development programmes. Collaboration among participants is fundamental to all the projects that it supports. This collaboration is justified in terms of benefits for innovation, yet the very formal collaboration of Esprit is far removed from both the network links which are now seen to join organisations, and the informal information channels of individuals, vital in the supply of information required for innovation. This paper considers what their relationship with formal collaboration might be.
