As scholars we navigate in the fast changing and demanding research environment. The pressure to produce tangible outputs, secure funding, and undertake international collaborations has high implications on individual researchers' work and well-being. The issues brought forefront in scholarly literature showcase the impact of research pressures on other academic duties such as teaching, scholarly service and community engagement. The attention is also drawn to the ways in which the above mentioned pressures influence choices researchers make regarding their research agenda. In this reflective paper we take the academic discourse a step further to explore how demands of research productivity intertwine with institutional and individual autonomy in our respective countries, Hungary and South Africa. Our conceptual framework is informed by commonly recognized levels of autonomy in HEIs, which relate to research activities. The three levels include: individual researcher, collaborative research teams and the institution at large. Considering the complexity of the topic and length restriction for this paper, we narrow our focus to how institutional and individual researcher's autonomy converge with two research productivity activities, namely dependence on funding and selection of outlets for research outputs.