Research performance of higher education in OECD countries: A hybrid multi-criteria decision-making approach

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the research performance of 38 OECD countries in the last 10 years. For this purpose, the research performance of these countries was analyzed using multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods with the productivity and publication impact data of 38 countries. The analyses were conducted both normal data and also with adjusted data based on the population and income level of the countries. Firstly, the importance level of research performance criteria was determined by three different MCDM methods. Using the weight values obtained from these methods, countries were ranked by three different MCDM methods used for ranking purposes. According to the results of the study, the publications in the highest cited 1% were determined as the most important and distinctive criterion. Secondly, the criterion expressing the relative impact of publications on the world was determined as the second most important criterion. In the analyses conducted without normalizing the data, USA showed the highest research performance. In the analyses conducted by considering the population of the countries, Switzerland showed the highest research performance. In the analyses conducted by taking into account the income level of the countries, Estonia has the highest research performance. As R&D expenditures, development level of countries and international collaboration increased, research performance of countries increased. However, with the increase in domestic collaboration, there has been a decrease in research performance. In addition, this research has shown how to use MCDM in the measurement of research performance by using objective methods with different backgrounds.