Evaluation of R&D Activities in Iran: Data Envelopment Analysis Approach

Today, capacity, development, and real independence of countries largely are linked with the ability to produce and publication of science. Purpose of this research is evaluation of the relative performance of research and development performance of Iran in compared with the region's countries by combined approach of DEA/TOPSIS. To this end, research and development activities of fourteen countries from the region's countries was extracted. In this regard, to assess the relative efficiency of region's countries, from inputs such as: enrollment rates in the sciences and engineering, researchers of research and development, R&D spending and output, such as: the number of engineering and scientific articles, patents and exports received the international advanced technology was used. For performance evaluation of countries, from 49 different combinations of inputs and outputs be used. Finally, TOPSIS technique was used as a mechanism for complete rating. Results show that Lebanon have best performance and Kyrgyzstan had weakest performance from different combinations of inputs and outputs. From notable results was that Iran has the poor performance and among the 14 studied countries is ranked thirteenth.