Measuring the Efficiency of China's Regional Innovation Systems: Application of Network Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)

CHEN K. and GUAN J. Measuring the efficiency of China's regional innovation systems: application of network data envelopment analysis (DEA), Regional Studies. This study applies a relational network data analysis envelopment to the systematic evaluation of the innovation efficiency of China's regional innovation systems by decomposing the innovation process into the two connecting sub-processes, technological development and subsequent technological commercialization. The results show that only one-fifth of China's regional innovation systems are operating on the empirical best-practice frontier during the whole process from technological development to commercialization. Furthermore, it is found that substantial inconsistencies exist between technological development capacity and commercialization capacity in most regional innovation systems, and that downstream commercialization capacity plays a more important role in the innovation performance of regional innovation systems.