In New Zealand, the funding of higher education research has been influenced by revised policy-driven imperatives. Amidst the institutional reactions to new criteria for governmental funding, individual academics are being asked to increase their productivity in order for their employing institution to access public funding. For this to occur, these three stakeholders need to have a reasonable understanding of one another’s core research objectives and align, as best possible, the strategies they employ to achieve them. This alignment of effort is not without challenges: it may, for example, result in ambivalence as staff resort to behaviours that contest institutional powers over their changing roles and responsibilities. In order to address these challenges, there needs to be further reflection on how the efforts of all parties can be better aligned and collaboratively integrated.