Studies, particularly in the UK, suggest that manifestations of the nexus is influenced by a university’s mission, and that putting the TRN in university policy at both institutional and departmental level is imperative to achieving meaningful and sustainable teaching-research connections (Jenkins, Healey & Zetter, 2007).

In Australia there are four groups of universities: Group of Eight, Australian Technology Network, Innovative Research University and New Generation University. Not all of Australia’s universities are categorised into one of the groups. Please see the Groupings of Universities Australia website for further information.

There have not been many studies in the Australian context in which the institutional mission has been explored as a variable of the TRN. However, there is one study that contrasted three different types of Australian universities and found that the TRN could be enacted at all three universities, albeit in different ways (Zubrick et al. 2001).  While the findings of this study are not generalisable, they do have positive implications for the potential of implementing the TRN across universities with different missions.

How Australian universities portray the TRN on their websites
In 2007 Krause (2007) conducted an analysis of ways in which Australian universities portrayed institutional teaching-research linkages online and in publicly available web-based policy documents. The study involved an analysis of the websites of Australia’s 37 public universities (excluding the Australian Maritime College) in early 2007. Analysis was based on all webpages and public documents available within five ‘clicks’ or links from the university homepage. The goal of analysis was to find evidence of explicit institutional statements about the relationships between teaching and research in the respective universities. Primary sources of information included: university Strategic Plans, Learning and Teaching Plans; and, to a lesser extent Research Management Plans and statements on professional development unit sites. No attempt was made to assess effectiveness or degree of implementation of these policy statements.

The analysis and synthesis of data resulted in the identification of 17 dimensions of teaching-research linkages, as portrayed in institutional web-based policy documents and webpages. The dimensions, listed below, use terminology derived directly from websites and online policy documents.

Australian universities say they make connections between teaching and research in the following ways:

1. Teaching informed by research on good practice in teaching and learning
2. Scholarship of teaching and learning
3. General high level statement interpreting TRLs e.g. alignment, integration, informs, interaction, enhancement, dynamically linked, complementarity
4. Teaching and learning informed and influenced by research
5. Research intensive culture permeates and is integrated with teaching
6. TRLs assist with knowledge transfer to external communities
7. Research-led teaching influences curriculum design and teaching
8. Research-based learning is integrated into teaching programs
9. Students engage with research environment and researchers
10. Integration of research and consultancy findings into teaching
11. Linking of research practices and the learning inquiry process
12. Teaching and research support each other
13. Embed research-enhanced teaching
14. Incorporation of research methodologies in teaching
15. Teaching informs research
16. Learners learn by doing research
17. Research intensive learning and teaching

A visual representation of how these dimensions mapped across 37 Australian universities reveals that, as Zubrick (2001) and colleagues found the TRN may be enacted across all types of universities and in different ways.

Australian university policy statements on the TRN
Analysis of Australian universities’ web-based policy statements and documents reveals the following about teaching-research links:

• The policy statements are typically aspirational statements with relatively few explicit operational objectives.
• The range of TRN dimensions is spread across institutional type – there is no evident pattern of types of links by university grouping.
• Some institutions made explicit attempts to connect teaching-research links to graduate attributes, but these were relatively spasmodic and aspirational with little evidence of indicators of success.
• Research into teaching practice and scholarship of teaching are dominant themes, particularly in new generation and technology universities. This highlights the fact that, for many universities, both disciplinary and pedagogic research are included under the umbrella of the teaching-research nexus.
• There appears to be much conceptual confusion about terms such as ‘research-led’, ‘research-based’ and ‘inquiry-based’. These terms are often used interchangeably in terms of stated objectives.
• There was little evidence of attempts to formalise evaluation of objectives and impact of teaching-research links.
• Many universities are still at the stage of defining the meaning and implications of the TRN within their local context.
• There were very few explicit references to the student experience with the TRN and the impact on student learning and outcomes of linking research and teaching.
• Some universities commented on the role of academic professional development in fostering teaching-research links, but the web-based analysis revealed little evidence of how these goals translated into practice academic staff professional development.
• Overall, there were relatively few explicit statements on how the various dimensions of the TRN are or would be implemented in practice, nor how these would be monitored or measured in the form of performance indicators.

What do policy statements reveal about TRN practice?
In addition to analysing the frequency and nature of universities’ web-based policy statements on teaching-research links, it is instructive to examine how these policy statements map onto the Trowler-Wareham dimensions of the TRN in practice. The Krause-Trowler/Wareham correlation of dimensions shows that:

• Almost two-thirds of Australian universities depict their TRN activities in terms of the scholarship of learning and teaching, emphasising that their teaching is informed by research on good practice in learning and teaching. Trowler and Wareham (2007) depict this as research influencing the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of curriculum.
• Close to one out of every two Australian universities state that teaching and learning are informed and influenced by research in which their academic staff are engaged (i.e. academic staff do research and this informs teaching). This may be a combination of discipline-based and pedagogic research. Few universities specified this in the high level policy documents analysed.
• Just under half of all Australian universities made a high level, global statement about the fact that teaching and research were ‘aligned’, ‘complementary’, ‘dynamically linked’, or connected in some other way in their institution. However few of these policy statements were exemplified.
• A small minority of universities made public policy statements to indicated that:
  • students learn by doing research in their university;
  • research methodology is integrated into teaching;
  • teaching informs research.

While these findings are limited to a small range of publicly available web-based policy documents, available at a particular point in time, they nevertheless highlight the range of ways in which universities across Australia have depicted the complex terrain that is the TRN. The TRN may manifest itself in different ways, at different times, in different settings. Factors such as disciplinary differences and institutional needs, priorities and resources will play a significant role in shaping the ways in which teaching-research links may appear in a particular university or group of universities.

The following factors may have a bearing on how a university interprets and operationalises the TRN

• Institutional definitions of what constitutes research activity
• Capacity to attract and retain research active staff
• Weighting of teaching and research in promotion and employment criteria
• Resources and institutional structures available to transform and monitor curricula with a more inquiry-based focus
• Prestige associated with research outcomes
• Funding and infrastructure available to support a range of research-teaching initiatives, including undergraduate research schemes

Click here to read about institutional strategies for embedding teaching-research links in policy.