Exploring the nexus between doctoral education and research, and developments in how research is organised and funded is of significance as doctoral education is both part of the higher education system for teaching and learning, and part of the research enterprise. Doctoral candidates are both students and effectively early career researchers. Drawing on data from an ARC funded study of the development of doctoral programs in Australia including investigation of eight discipline-based case sites, we argue that not only are the settings for research and doctoral education diverse, the settings and arrangements are complex. The findings show that significant features of education include doctoral programs distributed within and across a range of entities, sites and structures, both within and external to any one institution, and including academic departmental structures. We discuss tensions and issues raised by these developments for policy and practices in doctoral education; especially in a university system that has been moving to more corporate models of governance and organization to manage the expansion of student enrolments and pressures for accountability, risk management and quality assurance.