4.1.2.4 Indicator System of University Research Efficiency Evaluation
Based on the description of production process of university research and related
literature in previous sections, it’s our opinion that the input indicators of evaluation
on the university research efficiency can be classified into three dimensions—
physical inputs, human inputs, andfinancial inputs. The output indicators include
direct knowledge products, such as monographs, intellectual properties, etc.
Considering master and doctoral students are primarily the by-products^3 of research
activity, so we don’t include any student-related indicator in our indicator system.
As we mentioned in Chap. 2 , as a result of essential differences between research
activities in NEAM and HSS disciplines, we do the evaluation on the two
respectively. At the same time, considering the accessibility of respective data and
their essential difference in rules of research productions, here we construct two
separate indicator systems for NEAM and HSS disciplines. Their indicator systems
are presented in Tables4.2and4.3respectively.Introduction to the Indicators of Research Inputs
According to Tables4.2and4.3, we construct research input indicators from three
dimensions of physical inputs, human inputs, andfinancial inputs.(1) Human Inputs
Human resource is the master of research activities, on which the quantity and
quality of research staff have direct impacts. Generally, human inputs include fel-
lows and research teams with certain national titles, such as academicians from the
Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering, Cheung
Kong scholars, Outstanding Talents in the New Century, National Science Fund for
Distinguished Young Scholars (or Jie Qing), 973 chief scientist, 863 principal
investigator, national innovation groups, as well as other researchers or research
teams with provincial or municipal titles and other faculty with varied titles.
Besides, master students, doctoral students and postdocs are all counted as human
inputs.
Considering the representativeness of indicators, and the accessibility and
quality of data, for HSS disciplines, we select indicator of senior R&D staff,
4including staff participating in research activities, plus those R&D administrators
and supporting staff; for NEAM disciplines, we select indicators of total number of(^3) Postgraduate students are also a“conditional”by-product in 211Us, since some 211Us do not
have the power to confer doctor degrees in some disciplines.
(^4) There is data about total R&D staff in“China Statistical Yearbook on University Social Sciences
(2006–2010)”, while it has abnormalfluctuations in two continuous years in some 211Us.
Therefore, we exclude this indicator, and take the relatively stable data on number of senior R&D
staff instead.
118 4 Evaluation on Research Efficiency of 211Us: The DEA Approach