In most nations, if not all, the relationships between research on teaching, educational innovation, and teaching need continuous scrutiny. Only careful examination will insure productive relationships. The present paper attempts such a review of the current situation in the Netherlands. It is likely that the lessons learned will have some bearing on the situation in other nations as well. Over the past 10 years several large-scale innovations have taken place in the Dutch educational system. The ultimate goal of these innovations was to change the structure of the system. One plan was made to integrate nursery and primary schools and to replace the segmented secondary education system with a more comprehensive system, the middle school. These changes were not, however, simply structural; the plan was also intended to change the content of education. Schools were to provide better integrated all-round education, pay more attention to the characteristics of individual pupils, and increase individual counseling. The slogan for the middle school was: New schools, new goals. There was to be reorganization of both school curricula and school structures. This reorganization meant changes in what was expected from teachers. Thus they were expected to develop curricula and new styles of teaching, to spend more time on individualized instruction of pupils, and to interact as a team in a new way. In retrospect, we can ask whether, in these innovation processes, sufficient attention was given to the role and function of teachers and what teachers require in order to carry out these innovations. A start was made with innovations in the 1970s. These innovations are now moving into a final stage as regards primary education and an intermediate stage in the case of secondary education. Nevertheless, changes are still occurring in Dutch education, through, for example, the introduction of technology into education, the policy of giving special attention to certain groups of pupils, or the Back-to-Basics movement. Such changes also produce questions about the place of, and possibilities open to, the teacher. Presumably educational research could contribute an answer to such questions. During recent decades educational research has been concerned with narrowing the gap between theories of education and teaching, on the one hand, and the actual classroom situation, on the other hand. Theories about education were on the whole normative and prescriptive. They set forth the function of teachers in education and what ought to happen in the classroom and in education generally. These theories often lacked any empirical support. Meanwhile educational research concentrated on testing theories and collecting empirical data. Following the American tradition, research aimed first at establishing what are the characteristics of good teachers and then at the relation between specific educational variables and school achievement. There was little connection, however, between this research and educational innovation; apparently no one expected such a connection. Changes were made in the research programmes in an attempt to be more practical. There was, for example, research on teachers’ planning behaviour and thought processes. But it is doubtful whether