This paper originated as part of the early phases of internal planning within the National Institute for Education (NIE). A status study was conducted of the existing system of educational research and development (R&D) which (1) provided a framework of information as an initial context for framing policy and (2) examined a major mandate, given to NIE in its creating legislation, to build an effective educational R&D system. Three parallel courses of action were followed to gather information on the status of the R&D system: (1) data collection; (2) development of a larger framework of analysis to guide subsequent work (the present paper); and (3) design of a plan for an administrative unit of NIE charged with monitoring the development of the national R&D system and sponsoring studies related to its operation. The discussion here, centered on the framework development, divides into three major sections. The first section presents a framework of discourse on modelling. A specialized vocabulary is introduced and basic concepts of monitoring are presented. A "bridge" is provided between the simplified discussion of modelling presented here and a number of models not discussed. The second section presents a set of general criteria for tracing boundaries of educational R&D systems and expands the concept of educational R&D beyond usual acceptation. The third section deals with a specific framework for modelling the R&D system and reporting on it that is sufficiently comprehensive to accommodate most current models of R&D and the great majority of data available from either large-scale sampling at the national level or research on portions of the system. A concluding section relates the framework to NIE concerns. Appended is the author's view of how R&D fits into the world of knowledge. (MM)