Comparison of the colimit and the 2-colimit (Q6148306)

This paper aims to give a condition under which the colimit and the 2-colimit coincide. Let \[ \mathfrak{F}:\mathfrak{B}(n)\rightarrow\mathrm{Grpd} \] be a strict 2-functor in the 2-category of small groupoids, where \(\mathfrak{B}(n)\) is the poset of proper subsets of \(\{1,\dots,n\}\). The main result of this paper (Theorem 4.1) shows that the colimit and 2-colimit of \ are equivalent providing that a certain injectivity condition is satisfied. It is also shown that it is possible to truncate the 2-colimit at depth 3. A few applications are given in calculating the fundamental groupoid of a topological space. More applications are presented in [\textit{H. Brenner} and \textit{I. Pirashvili}, ``The fundamental group of binoid varieties'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1908.05538}].