Performance Evaluation of Energy Research Projects Using DEA Super-Efficiency

• Main Author: Sungsig Bang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-10-01
• Series: Energies
• Subjects: super-efficiency; data envelopment analysis; performance evaluation; energy research project; skewing problem
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/20/5318

This study proposes super efficiency (SE) as an efficient analytical method for evaluating the performance of energy research projects. Because the SE method is based on data envelopment analysis (DEA), it is free from the difficulty of weighting output, allows for the use of variables with diverse standards of measurement, and is capable of providing ranking information that regular DEA (CCR, BCC) analysis techniques cannot. To analyze the feasibility of the DEA-SE method, an efficiency evaluation was performed for energy research projects using both the weighting method as an existing method and the SE method. When the results were compared and analyzed, skewing toward particular output types was observed in the weighting method, owing to problems inherent in the method itself and in the weighting of subordinate variables that make up the total performance score. Therefore, adopting DEA-SE will redress the known problems of the weighting method by minimizing the problems of weighting and skewing in outputs, enabling use of the input and output variables with diverse units and standards of measurement, and providing ranking information of research performance evaluation that is unobtainable with the existing DEA method.