Cochran-Smith (2005) claims that research is part of the teacher educator’s job responsibility, yet it should not devalue the teaching part, but research and teaching should complement each other. Many teacher educators come into the profession from school teaching with little research knowledge and this has become a challenge when success and promotion in higher education to a large extend depends on research based publications. Yet another challenge is that teacher education is blamed for not having its own knowledge base and that it depends heavily on other fields, mainly philosophy, psychology and social sciences (Shulman, 1986). If teacher education is to claim its own academic domain, it means that an extensive research based knowledge on teacher education needs to be developed. Practice oriented research, such as action research and self-studies, is on the increase internationally, yet there is also criticism of this research, mainly related to the quality and the limited relevance, often only at a local level (Zeichner, 2007). In Norway the above challenges have been taken seriously by researchers and by the government, and in 2010 NAFOL, the National Research School for Teacher Education, was established. 23 of Norway’s teacher education institutions are partners in NAFOL, and in 2015, 145 teacher educators have been (graduated) or are current PhD students in NAFOL, all developing new knowledge in, about and with teacher education. In this paper the history of NAFOL, its organizational structure, academic content and present outcome will be presented. NAFOL is an example of how demanding challenges of teacher education and cooperation between the government and researchers have led to empowering researching teacher educators and to develop a national knowledgebase in teacher education with international relevance.
