The Research-Teaching-Study Nexus in Modern Systems of Higher Education

Abstract

From a field study of academic research and advanced education carried out in Germany, Britain, France, United States and Japan, the concept of a research-teaching-study nexus has been developed. Under modern conditions of mass higher education and sophistication of knowledge, identifiable forces that weaken this three-way relationship can be conceptualized as research drift and teaching drift. Operating to counter these forces, enabling, formative and enacting conditions at national, institutional and basic unit levels can be specified that strengthen the nexus. Critical is the fusion of advanced teaching groups with research groups in basic units. Such fusion is the principal operational tool of the American graduate school. It is this particular ‘institutional nexus’ that increasingly serves in national systems as the primary carrying vehicle for the close integration of academia's three primary activities: research, teaching and study.