Research institutions and universities have undergone significant organisational change during the past decade. While these organisations have been pressed to attract an increasingly larger proportion of their research budget from industry, they have introduced business principles and practices in order to manage their scientific research and to focus it more on producing commercial outcomes. As individual scientists and institutions have responded to these changing research environments, the research cultures of these organisations have undergone a transformation. This paper seeks to unpack the notion and process of ‘cultural change’ and to emphasise the social dynamics that underpin such change.