Title: Three-level multi-criteria analysis for measuring the efficiency of grant awarded research projects

Authors: Noor Saifurina Nana Khurizan; Adli Mustafa; Hamidah Abd. Hamid

Addresses: School of Mathematical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Pulau Pinang, Malaysia ' School of Mathematical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Pulau Pinang, Malaysia ' School of Communication, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Pulau Pinang, Malaysia

Abstract: This paper is written for the purpose of demonstrating a new way of applying analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and data envelopment analysis (DEA) in examining the performance of university funded academic research projects. Three stages of multi-criteria analysis were employed in this study involving AHP, DEA and preferential voting. AHP methodology was employed to construct a four-level hierarchy system to group the evaluation criteria and generate the related priority score. Based on the priority score generated from AHP, a score for the output data was then calculated and standardised. The original DEA model was then used to find the efficiency score for each research grant by solving its multiple objective problems. Later, DEA analysis was conducted using different combinations of output to distinguish the research grant projects that fully utilised its input to consistently produce the output. Further, an alternative way of producing an overall ranking was explored by employing the methodology of preferential voting using DEA. A case study of Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) funded research projects is presented to demonstrate the application with real life data.

Keywords: data envelopment analysis; DEA; analytic hierarchy process; AHP; preferential voting; R&D; sponsored research; higher education; efficiency analysis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIDS.2022.123634

International Journal of Information and Decision Sciences, 2022 Vol.14 No.2, pp.115 - 132

Accepted: 22 Nov 2019
Published online: 30 Jun 2022 *

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