A The Application of Data Envelopment Analysis in Evaluating the Performance of Universities and Higher Education Institutions: A Systematic Review of the Literature

The efficiency of universities and higher education institutions is considered by many researchers because of their strategic role in the development and economy of each country, because the evaluation of the efficiency of universities helps to implement effective programs for the development of higher education. The literature on evaluating the efficiency of universities and higher education institutions has evolved over the past decades. However, the divergence of approaches, process areas, differences in output and input variables of previous studies unveils the importance of conducting a systematic review on the use of data envelopment analysis technique in evaluating the performance of universities and higher education institutions. The purpose of this study is conducting such a review and identifying future trends in this field of research using a combination of systematic literature review and citation network analysis. After determining the search protocol and article selection criteria, 165 articles were finally selected and analyzed. The results show that, in recent years, in addition to educational and research activities, the performance of universities has been evaluated in terms of the performance of entrepreneurship and university-industry relations, which can be considered in development and improvement programs.