This article describes a collaborative research journey undertaken at the University of Edinburgh. The researchers who undertook the journey were a group of nine teacher educators. The researchers' purpose was to find a research identity in a university department with a strong commitment to training of student teachers but which existed within a university that has a strong reputation for research. The authors used a self-study methodology that focused on their individual experiences. The findings from this self-study reveal that , all the reseachers discovered a new collegiality. The authors also discovered , the tension between an identity as educator with a sense of responsibility to students and that of a researcher.