Transnational collaboration by educational researchers in Europe has grown fast since the mid-1990s and the means to support it have become more easily accessible. A study of the growth of the European Educational Research Association (EERA) since its foundation in the mid-1990s shows how transnational research in European education began, and how it overcame organisational problems and created opportunities for new research identities and subjects to be constructed. Overcoming confusing mobilities, creating "homes" or nests inside the EERA in networks, and building necessary forms of sociality are explored in this article by means of interviews undertaken with a range of experienced and engaged researchers who have worked within the European Conference of Educational Research (ECER) since its early years. These researchers are clear that a stable European space for education research has been formed, and offer ideas about the association's role in relation to its function and value.