Chapter 4
Evaluation on Research Efficiency
of 211Us: The DEA Approach
This chapter applies DEA model to evaluate the relative efficiency of research pro-
ductionin NEAM and HSS disciplines of 211Us. In order to do an in-depth analysis on
the efficiency status and inner logics of university research efficiency, this chapter
encompasses the following contents. First, we analyze the operation stage of uni-
versity research activities, by decomposing research production efficiency into Pure
Technical Efficiency (PTE) and Scale Efficiency (SE). Second, we compare research
efficiency of different groups of 211Us, by dividing 211Us according to certain
standards, such as 985Us and non-985Us, or eastern 211Us (further subdivided into
JUs, HSZUs, OUs), central 211Us, and western 211Us. Last, we apply analysis of
projection
1
to discuss how to improve the research production efficiency of
DEA-inefficient universities from the perspective of cutting the redundant inputs or
exploring output potential, namely, looking for the direction of university research
efficiency improvement from the view of entirety.
4.1 Indicator System Construction and Data Sources
4.1.1 Theory of Economic Efficiency
In any time and society, the scarcity of resources is a basic fact of real world. How
to improve the utilization of scarce resources to satisfy the infinite demand of
human as much as possible, is the very reason for economics to be created as a
discipline of social sciences. Efficiency, as a fundamental and important concept in
economics, can be simply explained as the relative association between input and
output, or cost and revenue in production activities. People always want to obtain
(^1) Analysis of projection is to identify efficient projectedfirms (or units) to provide references of
how to improve the production process of some inefficient units to achieve their efficient peers
(Coelli et al. 2005 ).
©Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017
Y. Hu et al.,Evaluating Research Efficiency of Chinese Universities,
New Frontiers of Educational Research, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4030-6_4