A network DEA quantity and quality-orientated production model: An application to Australian university research services

•Comparison of network and standard DEA for 37 Australian universities from 2004 to 2011.•Efficiency scores for each stage reflect the divisional performance lacking in standard DEA.•Standard DEA models tend to overstate the research efficiency of most Australian universities.

The motivation for this analysis is the recently developed Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) program developed to assess the quality of research in Australia. The objective is to develop an appropriate empirical model that better represents the underlying production of higher education research. In general, past studies on university research performance have used standard DEA models with some quantifiable research outputs. However, these suffer from the twin maladies of an inappropriate production specification and a lack of consideration of the quality of output. By including the qualitative attributes of peer-reviewed journals, we develop a procedure that captures both quality and quantity, and apply it using a network DEA model. Our main finding is that standard DEA models tend to overstate the research efficiency of most Australian universities.