In 2003 the National Literacy Secretariat (NLS) of Canada, at that time a branch of the Department of Human Resources and Development Canada, decided to review its research function. This article discusses some of the questions the review raised for the field. Many of these issues are to do with the management of knowledge--what research gets funded, to be performed by whom, and with what kind of approach--whereas others are concerned with the meaning of the research function itself, and what it can contribute to a field of practice such as adult literacy.