Jon: I just finished a marketing research class. Actually, user research IS what marketing does. In fact, I think design has stolen a lot from marketing research in this regard.
Having said that, both of these concepts have fluid definitions. One of my old bosses thought that marketing research stopped at getting your competitor’s catalog. Most people seem to think that “research” is whatever they happen to use. If they haven’t done qualitative market research, it might not exist for them.