This study seeks to investigate aspects of the relationship between the core academic activities of teaching and research in higher education, through a theoretically enriched discussion of the design of an innovative popular music module on Adele’s 25 album and its delivery to first-year undergraduates on a general-purpose music degree during the academic years 2015–21. Drawing on autoethnographic approaches, it contemplates the challenges associated with the execution of a module on genuinely contemporary topics, outlining the case for the importance of ensuring that university curricula remain up-to-the-minute as well as exploring strategies by which to realise this aspiration in the absence of a body of academic literature that might ordinarily have provided strong foundations for the content of such teaching. These lines of inquiry lead to consideration of broader questions concerning the evolving relationship between teaching and research in light of the substantial changes that have taken place within the UK higher education sector in recent years, as well as the possibilities for teaching-led research, developed exclusively for and in the academic classroom, as an alternative to the more traditional research-led teaching.

本研究旨在通过对阿黛尔（Adele）25的创新流行音乐模块的设计进行理论上丰富的讨论，来研究高等教育教学与研究核心学术活动之间关系的各个方面。专辑，并在2015-21学年向通用音乐学位的一年级本科生提供该专辑。它利用自动人种学方法，探讨了与执行有关真正当代主题的模块有关的挑战，概述了确保大学课程保持最新的重要性以及探索实现这一目标的策略的重要性。缺乏通常可能已经为此类教学内容提供了坚实基础的学术文献。鉴于英国高等教育界近年来发生的重大变化，这些探究线导致了关于教学与研究之间不断发展的关系的更广泛的问题的考虑，