Scientific and technological performances (e.g., patents and publications) made through R&D play a pivotal role for national economic growth. National governments encourage academia-industry cooperation and thereby pursue continuous development of science technology and innovation. Increasing R&D-related investments and manpower are crucial for national industrial development, but evidence of poor performance in business performance, efficiency, and effectiveness has recently been found in Korea. This study evaluates performance efficiency of the 6T sector (Information Technology, Bio Technology, Nano Technology, Space Technology, Environment Technology, Culture Technology), which is considered a high-potential promising industry for the next generation growth and currently occupies two thirds of the national R&D projects. The study measures the relative efficiency of R&D in a comparative perspective by employing the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method. The result reveals overall low efficiency in basic R&D (0.2112), applied R&D (0.2083), development R&D (0.2638), and others (0.0641), confirming that economic performance and efficiency were relatively poor compared to production efficiency. Efficient R&D needs policy makers to create strategies that can increase overall efficiency by improving productivity performance and quality while increasing economic performance.

Korea’s R&D investment has significantly increased in recent years and the quantitative outputs such as number of papers and patents have also increased with the investment. However, the quality of R&D outputs has not been fully addressed. In particular, quality of technical performance, such as the quality of patents, has attracted little attention. In this paper, a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method was used to construct models for efficiency analysis of R&D investment, focused on quality of technical performance. Indices were proposed to analyze the quantitative and qualitative efficiencies of R&D investment. In order to effectively analyze R&D efficiencies, the measurement units of the input and output variables were standardized. Based on cases of livestock quarantine R&D projects of Korea, the quantitative and qualitative efficiencies of national R&D projects were analyzed and factors that would influence R&D efficiencies were identified. This paper suggests that both quantitative and qualitative efficiencies should be considered when measuring R&D efficiency. Also, it is recommended to carefully consider the characteristics of R&D projects during project selection stage.