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Resources and Research Production in Higher Education: A Longitudinal Analysis of Chinese Universities, 2000–2010

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Abstract

In this study we examined the resource–research relationship at China’s research universities. The stochastic frontier production function was employed in analyses of a panel data set on a group of the most research-intensive universities in China from 2000 to 2010. Results suggested overall tight relationships between various resources (including human resources, research expenditures, and research equipment) and research publications. Distinct patterns emerged when research publications were disaggregated by fields [i.e., science and engineering (SE) vs. non-science and engineering (non-SE)] and publishing venues (i.e., domestic vs. international journals). Research publications in SE, especially those published in international journals, depended heavily on all three resources, while research in non-SE depended more on human resources. In addition, results suggested that research in SE had shifted its focus from domestic to international publications during this period.

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Notes

  1. These numbers do not include papers published in Chinese-media journals.

  2. Authors’ own calculation based on data from Thomson Reuters. The calculation does not consider number of authors and author order for a particular paper. We take total number of papers and calculate the proportion of those papers that have authors from certain countries.

  3. Authors’ own calculation based on data from Thomson Reuters. Any institutions with either “college” or “university” in their names are classified as higher education institutions. This, of course, would likely under-estimate the number of research papers affiliated with colleges and universities.

  4. Research publications are traditionally divided between SE and non-SE fields. SE fields typically include Sciences, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, while non-SE fields include Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Business, and Education. As in many other studies, the use of “non-SE” simply indicates the division of broad research fields and does not reflect bias toward any particular fields.

  5. These additional time varying models include those proposed by Pitt and Lee (1981), Battese and Coelli (1988, 1992), Kumbhakar (1990), and Greene (2005). See Greene (2005) for a detailed discussion on similarities and differences among these models.

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Acknowledgments

This Research paper was made possible by NPRP Grant # [5-1021-5-159] from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education Policy Studies, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, USA

    Liang Zhang & Liang Sun

  2. Graduate School of Education, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Wei Bao

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  1. Liang Zhang
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Correspondence to Wei Bao.

Appendix

Appendix

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Table 6 Stochastic production estimation of research production in Chinese universities
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Zhang, L., Bao, W. & Sun, L. Resources and Research Production in Higher Education: A Longitudinal Analysis of Chinese Universities, 2000–2010. Res High Educ 57, 869–891 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-016-9410-6

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