Scholarly Conceptions of the Nature of Academic Research in Universities: A Literature Review

Abstract

Conceptions of the nature of academic research in universities are blurred. Although higher education scholars concede that academic research within universities has been conceptualised in terms of basic and applied research, the conceptual debate with regard to what constitutes each type of research still lingers on. The purpose of this literature review is to highlight these conceptions by shedding light on how the nature of basic and applied research is understood in the extant literature.