Evaluating the efficiency of the Australian universities using data envelopment analysis

Understanding how teaching and research contribute to the overall efficiency of university operations is of great importance for universities to improve their performance. This paper adopts a holistic approach to evaluate the university efficiency from three perspectives including (a) the overall university operations efficiency, (b) the university teaching efficiency, and (c) the university research efficiency. It applies the technique of data envelopment analysis to thirty-six Australian universities for evaluating their relative efficiency respectively from these perspectives. Such an analysis helps differentiate the inefficient universities from the efficient ones and identify the potential areas for further improvement. The relationships between the overall efficiency of university operations and the teaching efficiency and the research efficiency are explored. The outcome provides individual universities with valuable information on how they can make use of their resources for maintaining and improving their overall efficiency in today's increasingly competitive environment.