Measuring research efficiency of higher academic technical institutions of India: a Malmquist productivity index approach

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to measure the change in total factor productivity and relative research efficiency of scientific departments of Indian higher academic technical institutions with the change in the competitive decision-making units (DMU) and the type of research outputs over the period of time. Panel datasets for nine departments of six Indian institutes of technology (IITs) have been created for the time period 2009–2013 and Stochastic data envelopment analysis (DEA)-based Malmquist productivity index (MPI) model has been used. Results indicate that in inter-IIT comparison, several departments of IIT Bombay (aerospace engineering, electrical engineering and physics) and that of IIT Madras (biotechnology, chemistry and mechanical engineering) outperform similar departments in other IITs for publication output while none of the IITs is on the efficiency frontier for patent output consistently for the given period. In intra-IIT comparison, biotechnology and electrical engineering departments of many IITs outperform other different departments for both patent and publication output.