We are two professional educators in higher education settings, variously in Israel, Ireland and the UK, and have worked collaboratively for some years. We share the view that what we know and how we come to know it influences how we act, so we understand the need for transformational epistemologies that appreciate the dynamic relationships between theory, practice and institutional influence. These understandings ground our commitments to finding new ways of enabling teachers to investigate and conceptualise their practices as research-based, with a view to developing new relational epistemologies for institutional influence (Schön 1995). We can both claim to have exercised educational influence in the learning of our social formations in our different countries, using action research approaches that require participants and ourselves to offer our explanations of practice in the form of our personal living theories (Whitehead 1989). Our claims to educational influence in learning in our local contexts transform into claims about the significance of action research for new conceptualizations of globalization. These take the form of a new public sphere which goes beyond legalism (Habermas 2002) and celebrates the capacity of all to contribute to a conversation of humankind (Geras 2005).