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In many countries, current research policy is dominated by managerialism and excellence, manifesting the aim of making universities into national strategic assets in the globally competitive knowledge economy. This paper discusses these policy trends and their mirror in recent developments in public funding for academic research, with special attention to Sweden. A review of the language in three consecutive Swedish governmental research bills from the past ten years shows a clear policy shift towards the promotion of excellence and strategic priority on the level of higher education institutions. Reforms to the funding system, especially the launch of specific strategic excellence funding programmes, are introduced to put the policy in practice. While the policy shift itself might be discursive, the changes to the funding system clearly show a determination on behalf of the Swedish government to increase strategic profiling and the pursuit of excellence in research on behalf of universities.

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We provide an integrative review of research on gender and academic careers conducted in the Nordic countries from 2003-2018. We investigate the nature and content of contemporary Nordic research and critically examine the methodological and theoretical approaches authors have used. We read, categorised, and analysed 74 articles retrieved from Web of Science. Our review shows that gender differences in academic careers persist, in line with earlier reviews. Also the early years seem crucial to the development of an academic research career. Studies focusing on gendered career trajectories and publication patterns together with studies on the influence of new public management on gender are the three main areas of research interest. Existing research lacks (1) a focus on the horizontal dimension (i.e. across disciplines), (2) studies developing concepts and theory and (3) studies focusing on the consequences of changes in the research policy framework for higher education.