Chinese Provincial Difference in the Efficiency of Universities’ Scientific and Technological Activities Based on DEA with Shared Input

Abstract

The universities’ scientific and technological activities have become the key link of science and technology and economy, and the core of promoting the national innovation capability and competitiveness. To achieve high-quality development of China’s science and technology, it is of great significance to measure the efficiency of universities’ scientific and technological activities accurately and explore their regional differences. Based on the innovation value chain, we construct a two-stage efficiency measure index system of universities’ scientific and technological activity, and then according to the universities’ statistical data in China from 2010 to 2017, by taking provincial universities as the research object, we exploit a two-stage network DEA model with shared input to measure the provincial efficiency of universities’ scientific and technological activities in China; what is more, we explore the provincial differences in efficiency of universities’ scientific and technological activities. Finally, we extract the influencing factors on the efficiency of universities’ scientific and technological activities using the dynamic panel data model. The results show that there are serious problems in the transformation between knowledge output and results in the universities’ scientific and technological activities. The scientific and technological activities of regional universities in China are not balanced. For provincial universities’ efficiency of scientific and technological activities, there exist great differences among different time and space, stages, and resource utilization modes. The endogenous factors such as policy system and technology service are much more important factors.