International audienceA meta-analysis data-driven approach is developed to represent the soil evaporative efficiency (SEE) defined as the ratio of actual to potential soil evaporation. The new model is tested across a bare soil database composed of more than 30 sites around the world, a clay fraction range of 0.02-0.56, a sand fraction range of 0.05-0.92, and about 30,000 acquisition times. SEE is modeled using a soil resistance ($r_{ss}$) formulation based on surface soil moisture ($\theta$) and two resistance parameters $r_{ss,ref}$ and $\theta_{efolding}$. The data-driven approach aims to express both parameters as a function of observable data including meteorological forcing, cut-off soil moisture value $\theta_{1/2}$ at which SEE=0.5, and first derivative of SEE at $\theta_{1/2}$, named $\Delta\theta_{1/2}^{-1}$. An analytical relationship between $(r_{ss,ref};\theta_{efolding})$ and $(\theta_{1/2};\Delta\theta_{1/2}^{-1})$ is first built by running a soil energy balance model for two extreme conditions with $r_{ss} = 0$ and $r_{ss}\sim\infty$ using meteorological forcing solely, and by approaching the middle point from the two (wet and dry) reference points. Two different methods are then investigated to estimate the pair $(\theta_{1/2} ; \Delta\theta_{1/2}^{-1})$ either from the time series of SEE and $\theta$ observations for a given site, or using the soil texture information for all sites. The first method is based on an algorithm specifically designed to accomodate for strongly nonlinear $\text{SEE}(\theta)$ relationships and potentially large random deviations of observed SEE from the mean observed $\text{SEE}(\theta)$. The second method parameterizes $\theta_{1/2}$ as a multi-linear regression of clay and sand percentages, and sets $\Delta\theta_{1/2}^{-1}$ to a constant mean value for all sites. The new model significantly outperformed the evaporation modules of ISBA (Interaction Sol-Biosph\`{e}re-Atmosph\`{e}re), H-TESSEL (Hydrology-Tiled ECMWF Scheme for Surface Exchange over Land), and CLM (Community Land Model). It has potential for integration in various land-surface schemes, and real calibration capabilities using combined thermal and microwave remote sensing data