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Analysis of institutional authors

De La Torre, Eva MAuthorSicilia, GabrielaAuthor

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March 10, 2025
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The importance of efficiency analysis for improving public services: Editorial to the special issue on "Efficiency and productivity analysis of public services in practice"

Publicated to: International Transactions In Operational Research. 32 (5): 2443-2452 - 2025-09-01 32(5), DOI: 10.1111/itor.70009

Authors:

De Witte, K; de la Torre, EM; Sicilia, G; Agasisti, T
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Affiliations

Katholieke Univ Leuven, Fac Econ & Business, Leuven Econ Educ Res, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium - Author
Maastricht Univ, UNU Merit, Maastricht, Netherlands - Author
Politecn Milan, ReMAPS, Milan, Italy - Author
UAM UC3M Res Inst Higher Educ & Sci INAECU, Getafe, Spain - Author
Univ Autonoma Barcelona, Fac Econ & Business, Dept Business, Barcelona, Spain - Author
Univ Autonoma Madrid, Madrid, Spain - Author
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Abstract

Public services around the world face growing demands, limited budgets, and changing populations. As a result, analyzing efficiency is more important than ever. Techniques like data envelopment analysis, stochastic frontier analysis, and machine learning techniques offer valuable tools for improving how public services are managed. This special issue highlights current research on measuring efficiency in education, healthcare, finance, real estate, and more. It is divided into four main areas: new ways to measure efficiency, factors affecting how well educational institutions perform, improvements in public services such as health and social care, and insights into how businesses use efficiency measures. The findings show how policy settings, governance, and data quality all affect how we measure and improve efficiency. Moreover, the contributions show how combining traditional methods with innovative techniques can provide a better analysis of complex systems and long-term outcomes. Building on the insights from the papers in the special issue, we propose a future research agenda that encourages collaboration between experts in different fields, uses new data tools, and supports evidence-based public service delivery. By connecting theory to practical use, this special issue aims to improve how public services operate, making them more efficient, fair, and based on real data to help decision-makers.
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Keywords

EducatioEducationEfficiency analysisPublic services

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal International Transactions in Operational Research due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency Scopus (SJR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2025, it was in position , thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Computer Science Applications.

Independientemente del impacto esperado determinado por el canal de difusión, es importante destacar el impacto real observado de la propia aportación.

Según las diferentes agencias de indexación, el número de citas acumuladas por esta publicación hasta la fecha 2026-04-02:

  • WoS: 1
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Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2026-04-02:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 29.
  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 27 (PlumX).

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 1.
  • The number of mentions on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 1 (Altmetric).

It is essential to present evidence supporting full alignment with institutional principles and guidelines on Open Science and the Conservation and Dissemination of Intellectual Heritage. A clear example of this is:

  • The work has been submitted to a journal whose editorial policy allows open Open Access publication.
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Leadership analysis of institutional authors

This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: Belgium; Italy; Netherlands.

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Awards linked to the item

Gabriela Sicilia acknowledges financial support from Fundacion Ramon Areces. Kristof De Witte and Tommaso Agasisti acknowledge financial support from the Horizon Europe EFFEct project (grant 101129146). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the granting authority. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
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