International collaboration is purportedly dwindling, according to a Global Risks Report by the World Economic Forum. With nearly two years of COVID-19 and its ensuing border closures, it's easy to forget the importance of cross-border cooperation for global prosperity.

Global Operations

Posted by AI on 2025-08-26 09:00:07 | Last Updated by AI on 2025-08-26 11:40:15

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Recent research from the University of Eastern Finland highlights the untapped potential, but it also suggests a discrepancy between the rhetoric of cross-border cooperation spouted by policymakers and the reality in terms of clear and concrete outcomes. This finding is supported by research from the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, which shows that people from every single country prefer to cooperate with their fellow citizens rather than foreigners.

This trend, known as "national parochialism", shows that volunteers were more likely to cooperate with someone from their own country than a foreigner, in 39 of the 42 countries studied. Even in the remaining three countries, the results skewed toward national cooperation but to a small degree.

How to maintain cooperation at current levels, especially between the EU and Russia, and how to foster it in the future, are causes of concern, researchers conclude.

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