Many evaluators and non-evaluators find describing evaluation difficult, primarily due to its relationship with other disciplines such as research. This sometimes results in uninformative explanations, such as “Evaluation is applied research.” This study surveyed 777 evaluators and researchers to determine how they define evaluation and, if at all, differentiate it from applied research. Results demonstrate that half of evaluators and researchers think of the relationship between evaluation and research primarily as an overlapping Venn diagram, with another third thinking evaluation is a sub-component of research. However, more evaluators believed research and evaluation intersect (60% vs 43%) whereas fewer evaluators believed evaluation is a sub-component of research (22% vs 36%). The results of this study suggest that evaluators see the uniqueness of evaluation from research more than researchers. Overall, the field of evaluation needs to better communicate this uniqueness to researchers and other non-evaluators to improve the field’s recognition and acceptance.