This paper reports on an empirical study, funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council that explored academic practice and policy implications relating to teaching-research links in Australian universities. The study is set against the backdrop of powerful change vectors (Schuster & Finkelstein, 2006) that are being shaped by such "grand narratives" as globalisation, the demands of a knowledge economy and society, and academic capitalism (Brennan & Teichler, 2008). At the national level - across OECD nations in particular - government policies are challenging traditional views of the purposes of higher education, the role of the academic and connections between teaching and research, thus potentially creating an "ontological crisis" for academics (Robertson, 2007, p.541). Moreover, at the local level, ever-widening "fault lines" (Rowland, 2006, p.62) are emerging that are contributing to academic work fragmentation.