Although institutional research has been a significant feature of U.S. higher education for more than 50 years, it is not so well understood in other parts of the world. As higher education around the world faces increasingly challenging times in responding to pressures of massification and globalization, increasing forms of accountability and competition, new stakeholder expectations, and rapidly changing technologies, IR will inevitably evolve to become a stronger force. The authors discuss available models that describe organizational maturity and propose a comprehensive maturity model for IR. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)