AbstractIn BERA's 50th anniversary, this special issue of the Curriculum Journal recognises the debt to the work of Lawrence Stenhouse, former BERA President, and founder of the British Curriculum Forum (BCF), and his influence on teachers' work in researching and developing the curriculum. Papers in this issue address what Stenhouse called the central problem of evidence‐informed practice: ‘the gap between our ideas and our aspirations and our attempts to operationalise them’ (Stenhouse, 1975, 2–3). Stenhouse's legacy for curriculum models and thinking, both within the four home countries and internationally, highlights the methodologies and theoretical perspectives that inform teachers as researchers and how we understand and evaluate such frames of reference. Approaches to involving teachers as researchers examined in this collection resonate with BERA's strategic plan to build on its links with practitioners, set in the context of BCF and its work to support teachers' curriculum research.