Add to ORKGThis study shows for eight science-based industries that the citation impact of research collaboration is higher for international collaboration than for national and regional collaboration. A further analysis of institutional affiliations shows that university-industry-government collaborations profit from being organised at the regional scale only in the cases of biotechnology and organic fine chemistry. The alleged importance of physical proximity for successful interaction between university, industry and government thus is not robust across industries. We discuss the policy implications that follow