1.1.3 Evaluating Research Efficiency of 211Us: Importance
and Urgency
Accompanying the tremendous increase in research input and output in 211Us, the
issues on research output quality and research efficiency were much more con-
cerned by the broader society and academia. Recently, some problems such as
mismanagement, serious waste, low effectiveness and efficiency in 211Us caused a
lot of attention by all aspects of society (), which required HEIs to optimize their
internal allocation of research resources, and maximize the full potential of every
input. On the other hand, through the construction over a decade, the infrastructure
in most 211Us were improved substantially, of which some discipline bases had
been well-equipped and even closer to the level of those top universities in
developed countries. Nevertheless, the amount of great research achievements was
still short in number, the international influence of these achievements had not yet
been prominent from a global perspective. Moreover, in some important basic
research areas and some high-tech areas as the engine of economic growth, the
disciplinary gaps were even more obvious. Thus, it’s not only an important but also
an urgent mission, to guide the research production of 211Us to an intensive
development path under the support of research productivity evaluation, and redi-
rect these universities from quantity-oriented to quality-oriented.
Following the progress of 211 Project and the opening of its third term, the
performance management of 211Us was on the agenda of Chinese central gov-
ernment. On the press conference of 25th March, 2008, ZHAO Lu, the director of
Department of Education, Science and Culture in Ministry of Finance, pointed out
that“the third term of‘211 Project’should focus on the innovation of system and
mechanism, and the construction of 211Us in the third term should be driven by the
innovation of system and mechanism, as well as the reforms. Currently, we are
considering to introduce performance management in the third term of‘211 Project’
(Zhao 2008 )”. Performance evaluation is an important tool in project performance
management, and research performance evaluation is the major contents of per-
formance evaluation on 211Us. Performance evaluation on research production of
211Us, is to monitor, steer and manage the research activities in 211Us, for the
purpose of improving research efficiency. It’s not appropriate to maintain the
evaluation work as merely routine inspection and accreditation. Contrarily, the
evaluation should be a complete systematical assessment encompassing all aspects
Table 1.1 Numbers of publications of 211Us in the ninthfive-year plan and the ten-year plan
Category The ninthfive-year plan The tenthfive-year plan
Papers in the SCI 38,000 109,
Papers in the EI 34,671 86,
Papers in the ISTP 13,419 40,
Papers in the SSCI 1775 3586
Total 137,831 352,4 1 Introduction