The issue of teacher education quality has emerged from national, EU and OECD policy discourses as an area requiring intervention to address problems of teacher effectiveness, retention and recruitment. Using the work of Hannah Arendt (1958) as a philosophical basis, the paper argues that teacher education can no longer be concerned solely with the reproduction of existing curricula, pedagogies or didactics, Rather, it has to engage in the production of knowledge in order to enable new forms of action in response to social and technological change. International collaboration is desirable as a way to enhance quality in teacher education, both because national ITE systems are bounded by their own policy frameworks, and because of national limits on research funding. Internationally, different systems can be compared and discussed, thus creating a quasi-experimental situation. The current project is itself a partnership designed to create a critical mass of knowledge in the area of teacher education quality. It is designed as a pro-active response to policy discourses which may otherwise result in further loss of autonomy and unsustainable interventions in teacher education.