has the largest number of DEA-efficient DMUs, approaching as many as 43 uni-
versities (or 43% of all 211Us). In the rest four years, the number of DEA-efficient
universities is basically around 35 (or 35% of all 211Us). From the view of returns
to scale, there are 35–40% of all 211Us achieving optimum scale (namely operating
at stage of CRS), and 10–15% of all 211Us operating in the area of increasing
returns to scale (IRS), and the rest operating in the area of decreasing returns to
scale (DRS).
Technical efficiency reflects the overall efficiency of one research production
unit, here we use the decomposition of TE, where TE is decomposed into two parts,
pure technical efficiency (PTE) and scale efficiency (SE), to demonstrate the dif-
ferences on research efficiency among 211Us. The results are summarized in
Table4.5.
Over thefive-year period, the averages of TE, PTE, and SE scores of NEAM
disciplines in 211Us are 0.80–0.83, 0.88–0.89, 0.90–0.92 respectively, all on a
relatively high level. There is no wide variation of each indicator across all years,
reflecting a stable efficiency trend with minorfluctuations (see Fig.4.2). Overall
speaking, there are certain rooms for 211Us to improve their efficiency in TE, PTE
and SE in NEAM disciplines. According to the efficiency scores of 2010
(Table4.4), there are 65 and 63% of all 211Us needed to improve their TE and SE
respectively.
It can be seen from the standard deviations of TE, PTE and SE,
between-university variation of TE, PTE, or SE is not obviously enlarged during
2006 – 2010. In 2006, the SDs of TE, PTE and SE are 0.212, 0.186, and 0.13
respectively, approaching their peak values. In other years, the SDs of TE, PTE and
Table 4.4 Distribution of TE and SE for NEAM disciplines (2006–2010)
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Overall technical efficiency
TE = 1 43 (43%) 36 (36%) 33 (33%) 34 (34%) 35 (35%)
TE < 1 57 (57%) 64 (64%) 67 (67%) 66 (66%) 65 (65%)
Scale efficiency
IRS 7 (7%) 18 (18%) 16 (16%) 13 (13%) 7 (7%)
DRS 49 (49%) 43 (43%) 50 (50%) 50 (50%) 56 (56%)
CRS 44 (44%) 39 (39%) 34 (34%) 37 (37%) 37 (37%)Table 4.5 TE, PTE and SE for NEAM disciplines (2006–2010s)
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
TE mean
(SD)0.826
(0.212)
0.812
(0.189)
0.793
(0.192)
0.812
(0.186)
0.806
(0.192)
PTE mean
(SD)0.89
(0.186)
0.877
(0.169)
0.88
(0.169)
0.892
(0.169)
0.879
(0.169)
SE mean
(SD)0.924
(0.130)
0.925
(0.109)
0.902
(0.126)
0.912
(0.117)
0.916
(0.112)
4.2 Overall Status and Change of 211Us’Research Production... 123