An Efficiency Analysis of the ‘Three-Missions’ in Irish Higher Education Institutions

In a time when there are only limited funding and staffing but ever-increasing enrollments of students, to assess the efficiency of universities becomes a crucial task, which itself is vital for effective allocation and utilisation of educational resources. The main aim of this paper is to measure the efficiency of Irish higher education institutions in teaching, research, and knowledge transfer, as one of the first analyses in the Irish context. Third level institutions in Ireland were found to be more efficient in teaching than in research and knowledge transfer. Despite differences between institutions and across types of activities, in most cases institutions were closely clustered in terms of efficiency, suggesting that size of an institution does not strongly determine its efficiency. Research and knowledge transfer efficiencies were found to be strongly positively correlated. In addition, while most explanatory variables were not statistically significantly related to the efficiency estimates, a higher share of female staff was found to be beneficial. In view of the recent debate on gender inequality in the Irish higher education sector, this paper highlights the importance of diversity