Evaluating the Innovation Efficiency of Higher Education Institutions in Mainland China: A Two-stage Analysis with Time Lag Effects
Duogui Yang （ Institutes of Science and Development, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China; School of Public Policy and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China ）
https://doi.org/10.37155/2972-4856-jei0304-11Abstract
The ability of higher education institutions (HEI) to innovate directly affects the overall scientific and technological strength and economic development speed of the region. Many studies have examined the innovation efficiency of HEIs, but more detailed studies are needed that address time lag effects and that apply the latest evaluation orientation. To this end, this paper focuses on higher education institutions in 31 provinces in mainland China and applies an improved two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis method to evaluate their innovation efficiency from 2014 to 2020. This study divides the innovation process of higher education institutions into two stages: applications for project funding (e.g., grant applications) and project research. The study considers how projects applied for in previous years contribute to the current year’s scientific research results, and a semi-global production possibility set is constructed for dynamic measurements that are comparable across periods. There were three main study results. (1) The overall HEI innovation efficiency experienced a two-period growth process, growing from 0.7900 in 2014 to 0.8218 in 2017 in the first period, and further increasing to the highest level of 0.8473 in 2020 in the second period. (2) The efficiency of the project research stage was generally higher than the project application stage; innovative resources were used at a higher level of utilization during project research rather than project application. (3) The top five provinces in HEI innovation efficiency, represented by Beijing, also have a large number of top universities.
Keywords
Innovation efficiency; Higher education; Two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis; ChinaFull Text
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Copyright © 2025 Duogui Yang
Publishing time:2025-09-25
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
