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This chapter argues that there has been little coherent attempt by the World Health Organization to align theoretical developments in health promotion research to shifting policy agendas. The evolving nature of health promotion has implications for health promotion research and related research agendas. By health promotion research, we mean research that services the needs of health promotion. By contrast, research on health promotion, may be concerned with developing critiques of health promotion practice or studying the values base of policy and practice. Both encompass a wide range of disciplines, among them epidemiology, anthropology, psychology, organizational and political science and sociology, that do not always sit comfortably side by side. This chapter draws on papers presented at, and reflections prompted by, the First UK Health Promotion Research Conference, held in Edinburgh, Scotland in April 1998. The conference was organized against the backdrop of this evolving international agenda and recent Great Britain Government policy initiatives. As such, it provided a timely opportunity to explore the main challenges for health promotion research in the twenty-first century. Two key themes recurred throughout the conference: the nature of knowledge and the meaning of evidence in health promotion. Finally and perhaps inevitably, in any field there is a lead and lag relationship between theory and action. In health promotion, theory has lagged behind action. In consequence, it has become increasingly difficult to account for how and in what ways action is linked to policy.