This conceptual article explores the idea of academic collaboration from a perspective that places knowledge in the centre of the inquiry. It considers the extent to which collaboration maintains its intrinsic salience for the academy, despite the proliferation of external incentives and injunctions. As scientific and socio-economic progress has been associated with collaboration, this has come to be viewed as a carrier of scientific and social returns, thus worthy of policy and institutional support. At the same time, though, the value of collaboration has been questioned. What are the dangers and the potentials attributed to collaborative arrangements? Why is collaboration a well-embraced but also a contested notion? Despite various degrees of adherence to the idea of collaboration, a progressive shift from the lone scholar to collaborative formations can be traced, making collaborations an embedded feature of the changing face of higher education and research. Although the role of research funding and institutional governance in this development is undisputed, the argument put forth here is that knowledge-related rationales continue to underpin collaborative pursuits with a research component, but that often these influences tend to remain underemphasised and unexplored.