Evaluation of relative technological innovation capability: Model and case study for China's coal mine

Abstract

After decades of development, China has become both the largest producer and the consumer of coal in the world. The coal mine output has continued to increase, and the production capacity is expanding at an unprecedented rate. However, this level of the output had been accompanied by poor geological mining conditions, low efficiency, high pollution, and high fatality rates. Thus, in order to have healthy development in the future, it is necessary to establish a safe, efficient, and sustainable coal industry in China. This paper examines four key conceptual dimensions for relative technological innovation of China's coal mine: research and development, resource exploitation, organizational management, and financial management. We established groups of indicators reflecting the performance of coal mine's technological innovation activities in each dimension. After reviewing major approaches to increase capacity for innovation, we developed an index system based on Data Envelopment Analysis(DEA) to audit the progress of innovation and development. We performed a case study of twenty certified green coal mines, the result demonstrates that this index system and model can effectively evaluate coal mine's relative technological innovation capability and get the input gap towards safety, efficiency and sustainability.