The Study On Evaluation To Relative Efficiency Of R&D Activities Based On DEA Analysis

R&D activity is a process of knowledge creation, production, diffusion, and application. As a main factor in S&T innovation activities, it plays an increasing important role in enhancing the competitive ability of a country. Understanding the nature of R&D efficiency/inefficiency is important for designing policies to improve resource allocation. The Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is a non-parametric and econometric method for measuring the relative efficiency of each Decision Making Unit (DMU), and it has a wide application in many areas for evaluation. However, research about evaluation to relative efficiency of countries'R&D activities is rare. Specifically, very little has been done to explore the relative R&D efficiency of China and make an international compare.The paper combines the methods of literature analysis and case study. It introduces and refines finding of research that apply DEA method to efficiency evaluations in different industries and organizations. Combined with the features of R&D activity and the development of DEA theory, DEA method are used in this paper to construct model for measure relative R&D input and output efficiency of countries. The method is explained and illustrated using countries as objects of study, and based on inputs and outputs index of R&D activity to assess the efficiency of countries.This paper consists of 3 parts: basis theory, model designing and demonstration. It follows the steps from theory to application. Based on the qualitative research through document analysis, it makes improvement in theory models and discusses its application on measure R&D productivity. In the part of demonstration, 30 countries are identified as research target, and a model is set based on the input and output index of these countries to measure R&D productivity. This paper combined the clustering analysis, Tobit model and DEA method together to fill in the gap of previous research, and integrated measure to national R&D activities are took between 1999-2001,2000-2002 and 2002-2003. Compare and analysis are done to find the difference and give reasons for the variation of R&D efficiency in different counties. At last the paper analyzes the advantage and disadvantage of the state of some counties'R&D resource allocation, and proposed several policy advices based on these findings.