Data Envelopment Analysis for Decision Support

Dear Colleagues,

The seminal development of nonparametric radial measures for technical efficiency in scenarios with multiple inputs and outputs has become crucial to Productivity and Efficiency Analysis. These advances have strengthened the theoretical foundation of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), making it an effective and objective decision support tool for both scholars and practitioners. DEA is widely used as a decision support tool across various sectors of economic activity, including agriculture, education, utilities, environment, finance, healthcare, manufacturing, public administration, transport, sports, and macroeconomics. Rapid progress in algorithms and software continues to increase DEA’s practical value for strategic and operational decision-making.

This Special Issue invites contributions that advance DEA, with a focus on decision support applications and novel methods using nonparametric frontier estimations. We particularly seek submissions where the core contribution lies in novel algorithmic developments, including their design, analysis, implementation, and validation. Submissions should clearly articulate the algorithmic advancement and its impact on decision support capabilities. Submissions on theoretical and empirical progress are encouraged, including but not limited to:

• Nonparametric frontier applications;
• Theoretical discussions and new model developments in DEA;
• Reviews, surveys, and meta-surveys;
• Papers reporting new algorithms, software, or computational developments;
• Decision support systems based on DEA and frontier methods;
• Integration of DEA with artificial intelligence and machine learning for enhanced decision-making;
• Applications of DEA in sustainability and ESG (environmental, social, and governance) decision support;
• Real-time decision analytics using efficiency and productivity measures;
• Comparative studies of decision support tools in operational research;
• Case studies on the implementation of DEA in organizational and policy decision-making.

Dr. Thyago Celso Cavalcante Nepomuceno
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Algorithms is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.