Reshaping understandings, practices and policies to enhance the links between teaching and research

The marketisation of universities needs to be seen in the context of major changes in international higher education. This chapter explores the role played by what became known as the Research and Teaching Forum that refers to the series of initiatives Roger Brown launched and led between 1998 and 2009. One of the conclusions from the 2000 Conference was the ambition to ‘develop the language concerning teaching and research in order to develop a higher order of common understanding’. The growing body of research has supported the enhancement of international practice and policy through linking teaching and research in ways that are realistic in a context of mass higher education systems. Healey and Jenkins have collected numerous practices about linking teaching and research from a wide range of disciplines, institutions and national systems. University strategies and practices regarding teaching and research have long been shaped by national views of the roles of universities, and through higher education funding and governance.