RESEARCH ARTICLE Evaluation of university scientific research ability based on the output of sci-tech papers: A D-AHP approach Fan Zong1*, Lifang Wang2 1 Division of Human Resources, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710072, P.R.China, 2 School of Management, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710072, P.R.China *
[email protected] Abstract a1111111111 University scientific research ability is an important indicator to express the strength of univer- a1111111111 a1111111111 sities. In this paper, the evaluation of university scientific research ability is investigated based a1111111111 on the output of sci-tech papers. Four university alliances from North America, UK, Australia, a1111111111 and China, are selected as the case study of the university scientific research evaluation. Data coming from Thomson Reuters InCites are collected to support the evaluation. The work has contributed new framework to the issue of university scientific research ability evaluation. At first, we have established a hierarchical structure to show the factors that impact the evalu- OPEN ACCESS ation of university scientific research ability. Then, a new MCDM method called D-AHP model Citation: Zong F, Wang L (2017) Evaluation of is used to implement the evaluation and ranking of different university alliances, in which a university scientific research ability based on the data-driven approach is proposed to automatically generate the D numbers preference rela- output of sci-tech papers: A D-AHP approach. tions. Next, a sensitivity analysis has been given to show the impact of weights of factors and PLoS ONE 12(2): e0171437. doi:10.1371/journal. sub-factors on the evaluation result.