A well-known definition of planning is that proposed by Friedmann (1993), who called it “a professional practice that specifically seeks to connect forms of knowledge with forms of action in the public domain” (p. 482). So planning thought must focus on the relationship between research and design, on the knowledge-action nexus. How is this nexus achieved? What are the methodological pitfalls involved? This work is about how the nexus has been conceptualised by Dutch planning. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.