A Case Study on Measuring Research Efficiency of Public Universities in Turkey

This paper measures the research efficiency and productivity of public universities founded before 1981 in Turkey over the period 2013-2016. Data Envelopment Analysis is applied to assess the relative research efficiency of these universities, while Malmquist Total Factor Productivity Index is used to measure the total factor productivity change with respect to research inputs of universities. The analysis made here differ from the similar studies in terms of the diversity of data set and the measurement of university research efficiency and productivity changes together. The results indicate that the number of relatively efficient universities according to their reserach inputs declines continuously over the years. Also, the productivity of research activities decreases except the period 2013-2014. It is additionally observed that 2.3% fall in research productivity of the universities is due to deterioration in both technological and technical efficiency over the yaers