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A proposed fixed-sum carryovers reallocation DEA approach for social scientific resources of Chinese public universities

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Abstract

How to evaluate and optimize the allocative efficiency of multiple research resources is of great importance for decision-makers and has great practical application value. This is especially true in the case of unbalanced allocation and inefficient utilization of research resources in Chinese higher education institutions (HEIs). Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) brings a new perspective on the resource allocation problem. However, the conventional paradigm of the resource allocation model in DEA assumes that inputs or outputs can be expanded freely when projecting decision-making units (DMUs) onto the efficient frontier. Thus, it is very difficult to deal with a situation where there is a trade-off between the evaluated units with the fixed-sum output. Considering a common resource allocation problem that occurs in multi-period activities where a carry-over indicator has the fixed-sum characteristic, we extend the study of Yang et al. (Eur J Oper Res 246(1):209–217, 2015) into a dynamic framework by taking the time dimension into account. The proposed approach is applied to reallocate the social scientific resources of Chinese HEIs from 2017 to 2019. The results show that all DMUs are in effective condition after reallocation and the optimal adjustments of newly approved projects can be obtained.

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Notes

  1. Data collected from Educational Statistics Yearbook of China.

  2. Data sources: China Statistical Yearbook on Science and Technology (2020).

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Acknowledgements

This work is financially supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. NS2022076, No. NK2022003); Jiangsu Planned Projects for Postdoctoral Research Funds (No. 2021K293B); Shandong Provincial Education Science Planning Project (No. 2021QZD003); the Frontier Exploration Project "Optimizing the Allocation of Scientific and Technological Resources and Application of the Double Helix Method" of the Institutes of Science and Development, Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. E2X1201Z).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Economics and Management, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, 211106, China

    Xi Xiong & De-qun Zhou

  2. Institutes of Science and Development, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Guo-liang Yang

  3. Qingdao Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, Shandong University, Qingdao, 266237, China

    Kai-di Liu

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  1. Xi Xiong
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Correspondence to De-qun Zhou.

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Xiong, X., Yang, Gl., Liu, Kd. et al. A proposed fixed-sum carryovers reallocation DEA approach for social scientific resources of Chinese public universities. Scientometrics 127, 4097–4121 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-022-04411-9

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