The purpose of the Danish Center for Accounting and Finance (D-CAF) is to facilitate a major research initiative in Accounting, Finance, and the interface between the two areas of research. It replaces two existing finance networks previously funded by the Danish Social Science Research Council, Mathematical Finance Network and Centre for Analytical Finance, while D-CAF is the first significant Danish research initiative in accounting.

The two networks have been instrumental in the development of finance into one of the most active research areas in the social sciences in Denmark. All the major Danish universities and business schools have finance faculties publishing in top-tier international journals. However, economics-based accounting research on an international level has mainly been concentrated around the current and former members of the accounting group at SDU in Odense. They are a leading group in Europe and have published in all the major accounting journals. It is the aim of D-CAF to facilitate an expansion of high quality accounting research to other Danish universities and business schools.

The primary means to further enhance the quality of research activities in both accounting and finance is to encourage research collaboration among members of D-CAF, and with leading researchers outside D-CAF, in Denmark and abroad. This will be achieved through funding of national and international research collaboration, organization of research conferences, seminar series at the participating schools, a working paper series, and through provision of access to international databases with both financial and firm data.

The Mathematical Finance Network and Centre for Analytical Finance initiated the development of Danish Ph.D. programs in finance and has arranged a large number of Ph.D. courses and seminars. These activities have now developed into The Danish Doctoral School of Finance, which is funded by a grant from the Danish Research Training Council. It is the objective of D-CAF to encourage collaboration with the finance school in taking the first steps to develop a formalized Danish Ph.D. program in accounting. The center members and the activities of the center provide a solid research foundation for this initiative.