½¿É«µ¼º½ was established 43 years ago, in 1974, at the height of the postwar expansion of education, and at the onset of a long period of controversy and reform of education that has continued ever since. The presidential address for 2017 looks back to reflect on the birth and early years of ½¿É«µ¼º½, on its founding principles and the circumstances in which it grew. It does so to identify the ideals that motivated and helped to shape the nascent organisation, and to ask how relevant and useful these are at a very different time, charting our future in the 21st century. How could ½¿É«µ¼º½ represent a growing and diverse community of researchers? How could it become independent of other academic fields and disciplines? How should it address the tensions between the academy and the everyday work of teachers in schools? How might it seek to be interdisciplinary in its approach? How would it manage the specialist interests involved in educational research? How ought it to engage with other societies in cognate areas? How could it flourish alongside the growing appetite of the State to be active in this area? These issues were at the heart of the ideas developed by early presidents of ½¿É«µ¼º½ including John Nisbet, Edgar Stones, Brian Simon, Lawrence Stenhouse and Sara Delamont. More broadly, this address moves beyond an institutional history and a history of ideas, to contribute to a social history of educational research based on a wide range of documentary and archival evidence. In considering our past, we must attempt to resist an uncritical and functional approach in favour of a critical and reflective outlook that is alert to unresolved issues and problems, no less than it is to success and progress in our collective endeavours. This is necessary partly in order to reconstruct our historical experience in a robust manner, but also to address our present situation in an effective way. In 1977, the historian Brian Simon framed his presidential address to ½¿É«µ¼º½ around the key question ‘Educational research: which way?’ Forty years on, we can appraise how ½¿É«µ¼º½ has approached this question, and also ask at the same time: which way now?