A study was conducted to determine how research by faculty members is responsive to uncertainty or inadequacy in the environment. The interrelationships among four variables were studied: perceived environmental uncertainty, complexity, boundary spanning activity, and environmental adequacy. It was proposed that the nature of the interrelationships among this set of variables will have important implications for understanding what kind and how much research is done by faculty members. Each of 22 graduate departments was conceptualized as a social system with faculty members as the unit of analysis. Twenty-five interviews were conducted with department chairs, faculty, and administrators at two major midwestern universities, one public and one private. Departments were sampled from the humanities, social, biological, and physical sciences. It is concluded that the certainty with which respondents at the two universities expect to receive grants appears to depend on the excellence of their departments, the developmental history of their department, the rank of the applicant, and the research area involved. Privileged access to the resources clearly reduces perception of environmental uncertainty. (SW)