Promoting the output and transformation of scientific and technological achievements of higher vocational colleges and universities is not only the topic of promoting the high-quality development of education in higher vocational colleges and universities, but also the way to deeply implement the innovation-driven development strategy. Taking higher vocational colleges and universities in four municipalities directly under the central government as research samples, this study first utilizes the DEA model to measure the transformation efficiency of scientific and technological achievements of higher vocational colleges and universities in four municipalities directly under the central government in the period of 2014-2023, and combines with the literature analysis method to dig out the key influencing factors of their transformation energy efficiency. Then, the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis method (fsQCA) is used to carry out empirical research on the transformation efficiency due to inputs and outputs of scientific and technological achievements of the studied higher education institutions and the interactions between their influencing factors, so as to analyze the grouping path of the improvement of the energy efficiency of the transformation of scientific and technological achievements of the higher vocational colleges and universities. In the analysis of the results of measuring the efficiency of the transformation stage of scientific and technological achievements, the efficiency of the transformation stage of scientific and technological achievements of local higher vocational colleges and universities in D city is generally at a high level, with an average value of 0.427. Meanwhile, regional development factors (consistency 0.9081>0.9) and policy factors (consistency 0.9322>0.9) are the necessary conditions for the efficient transformation of scientific and technological achievements of higher vocational colleges and universities, and they are the key influences to improve the energy efficiency of scientific and technological achievements transformation.