Universities and departments often characterise their learning, teaching, assessment and curriculum (LTAC) practices in relation to research. Some claim to be research-informed (primary research by teaching staff is not significant and students have no direct interaction with research and researchers but where teaching and learning draw on the research of others). Others claim to be research-led or research-focused (staff are engaged in research as well has teaching and even undergraduate students are inducted into cutting-edge research findings and research practices). Finally some claim to be research-driven (Russell group institutions where research is the primary activity and teaching flows from this). Yet what this means in practice and whether it might really be beneficial to the student experience is rarely articulated. Not articulated either are differences between disciplines and domains of study in terms of what these distinctions mean and how they play out in practice. The disparate nature of the literature above means that little help is to be found there for different disciplinary contexts.