The paper explores the extent to which notions of contemporary universities are still based on a concept of an institution that focuses on both teaching and research. The paper draws on current debates in England about whether a higher education institution needs to have research activity (including research degree awarding powers) before it can be awarded university status and the extent to which teaching and research are separate, interlinking or even mutually exclusive activities. In the 2004 Higher Education Act in England, the requirement for an institution applying to become a university to have research degree awarding powers was removed. Furthermore, various other pressures have been applied in England (including through funding mechanisms) to encourage the separation of teaching and research, including increased selectivity in research funding and a recent initiative inviting competitive bids for well-funded Centres for Excellence in Teaching (though a number of these have gone to research intensive universities). In other UK countries there seems to have been more endeavour to keep the two activities linked but there are also other factors driving research and teaching apart too, which are issues not just in the UK but in Europe too. These include: the rise of corporate universities which are effectively staff development units for company employees, the decline of public funding for universities, the shift from academic self governance to managerial, market and competitive modes of university governance (particularly in respect of research), and the massification of higher education which has increased staff workloads and made it more difficult for academics to be all-rounders. Research is increasingly conducted on a commercial basis although teaching has (so far) a less commercial emphasis, which raises issues about the differential applicability of the GATS agreement to each activity. This is also reflected in debates about the future of European higher education under the Bologna and subsequent agreements (eg Graz in 2003). There are plans for a European Research Area which focus partly on how to get private sector funding for excellent research, whilst plans for convergence in teaching concentrate on how different cycles of higher education can be defined and student mobility, a quite different set of issues. The paper explores what the consequences are of having an increased separation of teaching and research in contemporary universities, drawing on interviews with academics in the field of Education and also noting the impact on universities in England of the top-up tuition fees proposals for undergraduates, which may make future consumers of education concentrate their attention on getting value for money from teaching-focused non research- active academic staff.