Global growth in the higher education sector has been accompanied by equally unprecedented growth in research programs, research-trained faculty, and research-oriented universities. This, in turn, has produced a remarkable increase in the demand for, and to a lesser degree, the supply of the infrastructure requisite for academic research. These developments have occurred simultaneously with an intensification of pressure for increased productivity and increased quality in academic research. The research journal sits at the crossroads of these rapidly moving developments. The way the research journal defines its mission, the way it measures quality and the way it aspires for relevance will be consequential for its future. The research journal, as an institution, is re-assessing its role in ensuring that research of high quality is produced effectively and efficiently and in a timely manner. And that it is disseminated to other researchers and more broadly to those in society who may benefit from it. Finally, it is critical that the infrastructure around academic publishing is structured and assessed in ways that support this demand for more, better research and quicker and easier dissemination.

This paper is divided into two introductory sections which document the recent growth in the higher education sector internationally and the concomitant growth of research universities internationally. It then analyzes the traditional role played by academic publishing and research journals within the research university.

A middle section analyzes recent developments within this new and emerging higher education sector along three dimensions: mission differentiation by type of institution, faculty differentiation along dimensions of teaching and research and differentiation by institutional control- public and private. It also discusses the role of new players as university researchers are increasingly encouraged to reduce the frictions and costs of translation from basic to applied research and to improve the real benefits of the research outside of academe.

The final section reviews three challenges posed by these new developments and analyzes the extent to which disruption of former processes and values systems might create space for new institutional configurations..

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