The relationship between research policy and academic performance is highly relevant to policy. Yet our knowledge of the effects of different systemic factors is still limited and inconclusive. In an explorative, single country case study covering a timespan of three decades this study examines the effects of changes in selected funding factors based on the notion that funding plays a decisive role in defining the scope, content and direction of public research. The analysis reveals that Denmark, which today is a top research nation, experienced a turning point in impact in the early 1990s which coincided with a number of systemic policy changes. However, the analysis also shows that even at this detailed, long-term level of analysis the relationships are far from straightforward. A number of explanations for the difficulties related to opening the black box of national research performance are discussed in the concluding section.
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