This paper argues for the thesis research plan at the university as a process of structural diff erentiation of roles within the concept of academic professionalism. The teaching concept has expanded its contents beyond its assumptions, facing ambiguities and displacements that satisfy neither organizations nor the expected role. Diff erentiation is an indicator of a new profession that emerges from requirements linked to the globalization of knowledge and that has only recently settled in Latin America and particularly in Colombia. This document broadly reconstructs the process followed by research at the Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia during the last 20 years. It also portrays the limitations and opportunities and suggests a path to be followed collectively and institutionally.