their research in basic sciences. Second, university’s research has been combined
very well with local industries. Therefore, in the future, university should facilitate
basic research, especially in disciplines like natural sciences, engineering, agri-
culture and medicine, at the same time, tighten their relations with market to
improve the transferring of research knowledge. This would be not only the
important strategy to improve university research efficiency, but also the technology
support to achieve regional economic transformations and development of
emerging industries.
Third, the cooperation and sharing mechanism do not function well between
universities, especially in those regions gathering most 211Us, the cluster effect
cannot be proved.According to theory of industrial economics and many empirical
evidences, cluster effect is the prime source for saving costs and improving pro-
ductivity, which is particularly true in the context of increasingly higher expenses of
advanced equipment and human resources. However, in our econometric model,
this effect can’t be identified in either NEAM disciplines or HSS disciplines. Thus,
in the future of higher education construction projects,”, policymaker should
facilitate research collaboration and resource sharing between universities located in
the same region, in order to improve research efficiency by cluster effect, andfinally
achieve research innovations and efficiency improvements in research universities.
Forth, the research efficiency of 211Us under MOE administration is lower than
other 211Us, which is significant in both NEAM and HSS samples.In our opinion,
the major cause of lower efficiency of 211Us under MOE administration might be
attributed to their unique resource of research funds and less competitive mecha-
nisms, which is not good for motivating them to improve their efficiency. Therefore,
in the future, policymaker should highlight the importance of research effectiveness
and performance, and further motivate 211Us to improve their efficiency by
enhancing their academic autonomy and introducing competition mechanism.
Fifth, the structures of research staff has relatively substantial impacts on
211Us’research efficiency.In both NEAM and HSS disciplines, the ratio of female
staff has significantly negative effects on research efficiency. In HSS disciplines, the
ratio of staff with doctor degree has a significantly positive effect on research
efficiency. The underlying reasons need us to do further empirical works at disci-
plinary level, and do systematic studies on the internal mechanism of university
research productions. Nevertheless, thisfinding still reminds us to care about the
issues of female researchers and faculty development in 211Us.
References
Aghion, P., Dewatripont, M., Hoxby, C. M., Mas-Colell, A., Sapir, A. (2009). The governance and
performance of research universities: evidence from Europe and the U.S.NBER Working
Paper.
Bian, Y., & Qiu, H. (2000). The social capital of enterprises and its efficiency.Social Sciences in
China, 2, 87 – 99. (in Chinese).
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