Evaluation of the cooperative innovation efficiency in China's manufacturing based on an DEA clustering model

Cooperative innovation is an important way to improve an enterprise's independent innovation ability. In this paper, an efficiency evaluation index system of cooperative innovation is set up for China's manufacturing firstly, then a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) clustering model is proposed to classify the cooperative innovation efficiency of each manufacturing industries by pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency separately, finally an empirical study on China's 28 manufacturing industries is done. Results show that most of China's manufacturing industries have lower cooperative innovation efficiencies, the lower utilization of science and technology funds at internal payment and industry-university-institute external cooperative payment, and the insufficiency of patent application are the reasons for the lower efficiency in cooperative innovation. Lastly, some suggestions are presented to enterprises, cooperative members and the government for increasing cooperative innovation efficiencies of China's manufacturing industries.