The workplaces of researchers in different disciplines

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study whether researchers from different disciplines have different requirements for workplaces. Design/methodology/approach A literature review aimed to understand the academic workplace requirements of different disciplines. The empirical data were gathered by a national survey conducted in Finland. Open-ended questions accumulated answers, which were analysed and clustered. Findings The analysis implies that the majority of researchers in all the disciplinary categories required places that support both concentration and interaction. When comparing those researchers who asked for a place that only supports either concentration or interaction, the majority of those working in soft-pure disciplines required spaces to support concentration and those in soft-applied disciplines required spaces to support interaction. Researchers from hard disciplines – both applied and pure – consider places supporting concentration or interaction to be equally important. Research limitations/implications The weakness of this study is the generalisability, as this survey was conducted in Finland. The analysis emphasised diversity between disciplines without analysing diversity within disciplines. Practical implications Facilities and real estate managers can gain a deeper understanding of the academics’ workplace requirements, which in turn can help them to enhance workplace support of productivity at the same time as cutting real estate costs. Originality/value This study contributes to the body of research on academic office design.