This paper contributes to the literature on the research-teaching nexus in higher education by focusing on lecturers’ perceptions of the relative importance of different aspects of doing research for students’ professional careers, and on their attempts to integrate these different aspects into the curriculum. Fifty-five lecturers from universities of applied sciences (UAS), teaching on five different programmes, participated in focus group discussions. The data were analyzed following the grounded theory methodology advocated by Briell et al. (2010). Four different research aspects were identified i.e. research steps, sequencing research steps, characteristics of the researcher and linking research with practice. Analysis reveals that lecturers consider the development of critical thinking in students to be the most important outcome for students’ professional careers. Results indicate that in most curricula different research steps are taught, within different courses, e.g. in a methodological course students learn about designing research, in another they learn how to do a literature review. In some curricula doing research has a prominent role, and explicitly aims at developing research skills as well as the development of critical thinking. In other programmes doing research is not part of curriculum and the development of critical thinking is addressed by questioning given information.