As knowledge for competitive advantage develops beyond the transfer of simple data and information to focus on knowledge that has meaning, values, purpose and a more integrated aspect, higher education is required to graduate students able to operate in a more worldly manner across disciplines. Government's response to this need has been to demand that universities adhere to more rigorous quantitative output measures of the quality of research and teaching. The response from universities has been mixed. While some academics are exploring teaching innovations to develop students' knowledge, research and problem-diagnostic skills through actively engaging them in authentic professional challenges, others are focusing on increasing discipline-linked research outputs. This is leading to a renewed debate as to the relative importance and contribution of teaching and discipline-based research. This paper argues that, rather than re-open this old division, a new framework is needed in which multi-directional interactions between discipline-based research, teaching-as-practice and scholarship of teaching are recognised. A conceptual Scholarship-Teaching-Action-Research framework is presented to provide focus for further discourse. (Contains 1 figure.)