Late 70's and I think presented in 1980, the Italian Cycling Federation FCI concluded an evaluation of race bike design and handling, made the results available to the Italian mfgs. Gios and Pinarello come to mind as brands that bought in. The report has long been taken offline but it resulted plainly to the shorter top tube, slightly steeper and resulting longer stem extensions to make the weight distribution more equal on the wheels. I am not sure that was a good thing as the pro peloton just looks more "nervous" to me compared to earlier times, the bars are much wider too, so plenty of elements to track.

A bit later the Eddy Merckx brand announced a 500,000 euro academic grant for a study of bicycle design and stability, with the results to be made public. Never saw a result of that unfortunately. Merckx did have opinions of bike design from his experience and the "century" geometry as the brand called it was reasonably conservative.