This paper analyzes the research efficiency of humanities and social sciences of colleges and universities in China from 2009 to 2016. The significance of the research is to promote the "Double First-rate" strategical plan, and the humanities and social sciences research, and to improve the international academic status. The data come from www.sinoss.net and the website of the National Bureau of Statistics. Bootstrap-DEA method is used, and maxDEA and SPSS16.0 are used for data processing. It shows that the technical efficiency (TE) is relatively high on the whole, and the pure technical efficiency (PTE) has stronger influence on TE compared with scale efficiency (SE). It indicates that resource allocation ability and rate of resource utilization are the determinants of research efficiency. There is no significant correlation between the level of local economic development and research efficiency. Efficiency variances among provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions. Three proposals are tabled to improve research efficiency:to formulate a research management system distinct from natural science; to enlarge the right of self-management; to optimize evaluation standard of research and incentive mechanism.