IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v76y2008i2d10.1007_s11192-007-1942-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The measurement of Italian universities’ research productivity by a non parametric-bibliometric methodology

Author

Listed:
  • Giovanni Abramo

    (University of Rome “Tor Vergata”
    Italian National Research Council
    Università degli Studi di Roma “Tor Vergata”)

  • Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo

    (University of Rome “Tor Vergata”)

  • Fabio Pugini

    (University of Rome “Tor Vergata”)

Abstract

This paper presents a methodology for measuring the technical efficiency of research activities. It is based on the application of data envelopment analysis to bibliometric data on the Italian university system. For that purpose, different input values (research personnel by level and extra funding) and output values (quantity, quality and level of contribution to actual scientific publications) are considered. Our study aims at overcoming some of the limitations connected to the methodologies that have so far been proposed in the literature, in particular by surveying the scientific production of universities by authors’ name.

Suggested Citation

  • Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Fabio Pugini, 2008. "The measurement of Italian universities’ research productivity by a non parametric-bibliometric methodology," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 76(2), pages 225-244, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:76:y:2008:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-007-1942-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-007-1942-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-007-1942-2
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-007-1942-2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Antreas Athanassopoulos & Estelle Shale, 1997. "Assessing the Comparative Efficiency of Higher Education Institutions in the UK by the Means of Data Envelopment Analysis," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(2), pages 117-134.
    2. Siegel, Donald S. & Waldman, David & Link, Albert, 2003. "Assessing the impact of organizational practices on the relative productivity of university technology transfer offices: an exploratory study," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 27-48, January.
    3. Saul Lach & Mark Schankerman, 2008. "Incentives and invention in universities," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(2), pages 403-433, June.
    4. Charnes, A. & Cooper, W. W. & Rhodes, E., 1978. "Measuring the efficiency of decision making units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 2(6), pages 429-444, November.
    5. Steven Wooding & Kate Wilcox-Jay & Grant Lewison & Jonathan Grant, 2006. "Co-author inclusion: A novel recursive algorithmic method for dealingwith homonyms in bibliometric analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 66(1), pages 11-21, January.
    6. Wesley M. Cohen & Richard R. Nelson & John P. Walsh, 2003. "Links and Impacts: The Influence of Public Research on Industrial R&D," Chapters, in: Aldo Geuna & Ammon J. Salter & W. Edward Steinmueller (ed.), Science and Innovation, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. María Bordons & Fernanda Morillo & M. Teresa Fernández & Isabel Gómez, 2003. "One step further in the production of bibliometric indicators at the micro level: Differences by gender and professional category of scientists," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 57(2), pages 159-173, June.
    8. A. T. Flegg & D. O. Allen & K. Field & T. W. Thurlow, 2004. "Measuring the efficiency of British universities: a multi-period data envelopment analysis," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(3), pages 231-249.
    9. Andrea Bonaccorsi & Cinzia Daraio, 2003. "A robust nonparametric approach to the analysis of scientific productivity," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(1), pages 47-69, April.
    10. Ajay Agrawal & Rebecca Henderson, 2002. "Putting Patents in Context: Exploring Knowledge Transfer from MIT," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(1), pages 44-60, January.
    11. Andrea Bonaccorsi & Cinzia Daraio & Léopold Simar, 2006. "Advanced indicators of productivity of universitiesAn application of robust nonparametric methods to Italian data," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 66(2), pages 389-410, February.
    12. Anthony F. J. van Raan, 2005. "Fatal attraction: Conceptual and methodological problems in the ranking of universities by bibliometric methods," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 62(1), pages 133-143, January.
    13. Abbott, M. & Doucouliagos, C., 2003. "The efficiency of Australian universities: a data envelopment analysis," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 89-97, February.
    14. Jeannette Colyvas & Michael Crow & Annetine Gelijns & Roberto Mazzoleni & Richard R. Nelson & Nathan Rosenberg & Bhaven N. Sampat, 2002. "How Do University Inventions Get Into Practice?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(1), pages 61-72, January.
    15. Marianne Gauffriau & Peder Olesen Larsen, 2005. "Counting methods are decisive for rankings based on publication and citation studies," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 64(1), pages 85-93, July.
    16. R. D. Banker & A. Charnes & W. W. Cooper, 1984. "Some Models for Estimating Technical and Scale Inefficiencies in Data Envelopment Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(9), pages 1078-1092, September.
    17. Vetle I. Torvik & Marc Weeber & Don R. Swanson & Neil R. Smalheiser, 2005. "A probabilistic similarity metric for Medline records: A model for author name disambiguation," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 56(2), pages 140-158, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mehdi Rhaiem, 2017. "Measurement and determinants of academic research efficiency: a systematic review of the evidence," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(2), pages 581-615, February.
    2. Cristian Barra & Roberto Zotti, 2016. "Measuring Efficiency in Higher Education: An Empirical Study Using a Bootstrapped Data Envelopment Analysis," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 22(1), pages 11-33, February.
    3. Kristof De Witte & Laura López-Torres, 2017. "Efficiency in education: a review of literature and a way forward," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 68(4), pages 339-363, April.
    4. Calogero Guccio & Marco Ferdinando Martorana & Isidoro Mazza, 2016. "Efficiency assessment and convergence in teaching and research in Italian public universities," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 107(3), pages 1063-1094, June.
    5. José França & João Figueiredo & Jair Lapa, 2010. "A DEA methodology to evaluate the impact of information asymmetry on the efficiency of not-for-profit organizations with an application to higher education in Brazil," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 173(1), pages 39-56, January.
    6. Nicola Baldini, 2008. "Negative effects of university patenting: Myths and grounded evidence," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 75(2), pages 289-311, May.
    7. Larsen, Maria Theresa, 2011. "The implications of academic enterprise for public science: An overview of the empirical evidence," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 6-19, February.
    8. Bergantino, Angela Stefania & Capozza, Claudia & Porcelli, Francesco, 2015. "Hotelling competition and teaching efficiency of Italian university faculties. A semi-parametric analysis," MPRA Paper 62927, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Manuel Salas-Velasco, 2020. "Measuring and explaining the production efficiency of Spanish universities using a non-parametric approach and a bootstrapped-truncated regression," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(2), pages 825-846, February.
    10. Mishra, Neelesh Kumar & Chakraborty, Abhishek & Singh, Sanjeet & Ranjan, Prabhat, 2023. "Efficiency analysis of engineering colleges in India: Decomposition into parallel sub-processes systems," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    11. Yolanda Fernández-Santos & Almudena Martínez-Campillo & José Miguel Fernández-Fernández, 2016. "¿Son eficientes en docencia, investigación y transferencia de conocimiento las universidades públicas españolas? Medida y determinantes," Investigaciones de Economía de la Educación volume 11, in: José Manuel Cordero Ferrera & Rosa Simancas Rodríguez (ed.), Investigaciones de Economía de la Educación 11, edition 1, volume 11, chapter 35, pages 637-652, Asociación de Economía de la Educación.
    12. Cornelia Lawson, 2013. "Academic Inventions Outside the University: Investigating Patent Ownership in the UK," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(5), pages 385-398, July.
    13. Alexandr Gedranovich & Mykhaylo Salnykov, 2012. "Productivity analysis of Belarusian higher education system," BEROC Working Paper Series 16, Belarusian Economic Research and Outreach Center (BEROC).
    14. Mehdi Rhaiem & Nabil Amara, 2020. "Determinants of research efficiency in Canadian business schools: evidence from scholar-level data," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(1), pages 53-99, October.
    15. José Manuel Pastor & Lorenzo Serrano, 2016. "The determinants of the research output of universities: specialization, quality and inefficiencies," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(2), pages 1255-1281, November.
    16. George E. Halkos & Nickolaos G. Tzeremes & Stavros A. Kourtzidis, 2010. "An application of statistical interference in DEA models: An analysis of public owned university departments' efficiency," EERI Research Paper Series EERI_RP_2010_17, Economics and Econometrics Research Institute (EERI), Brussels.
    17. Christian Fisch & Tobias Hassel & Philipp Sandner & Joern Block, 2015. "University patenting: a comparison of 300 leading universities worldwide," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 318-345, April.
    18. Barra, Cristian & Zotti, Roberto, 2014. "Handling negative data using Data Envelopment Analysis: a directional distance approach applied to higher education," MPRA Paper 55570, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Nicola Baldini & Rosa Grimaldi & Maurizio Sobrero, 2007. "To patent or not to patent? A survey of Italian inventors on motivations, incentives, and obstacles to university patenting," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 70(2), pages 333-354, February.
    20. Muhammad Nisar Khan & Adnan Ahmad & Noor Jehan, 2018. "Pakistani Firms' Efficiency: An Empirical Study of Pakistan Stock Exchange through Data Envelopment Analysis," Global Social Sciences Review, Humanity Only, vol. 3(3), pages 158-174, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:76:y:2008:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-007-1942-2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.