We studied a case of collaboration between researchers and teachers by participative observation and data analysis based on actors connected by their actions in a network (Frenssen & Tamassia, 2019). The context of this work was a curriculum change introduced in 2006, being a precursor of the modernisation of secondary education taking place today in Belgian Flanders (Tamassia & Frenssen, 2019). Based on our results, we elaborate on the question ‘who gains what?’ for this case of collaboration and argue that it is a common voice, of researchers and teachers, what has been gained. In the original project setting, researchers and teachers were supposed to learn from each other in a learning community, in order to overcome difficulties with a curriculum change imposed from above (Frenssen, Castelein & Tamassia, 2016). Gains in didactic and design-based research skills were expected for researchers and teachers. In the course of the project this idea of learning community crumbled to the ground. Data collected by participant observation of the teachers’ practice pointed to problematic features that might have affected the collaboration. The decision was taken to study both the teachers’ practice and the project’s practice within the conceptual framework of the actor-network theory (Latour, 1987, 2000, 2005; Venturini, 2012). Our actor-network analysis identifies actors forcing the teacher team in a position where the importance of didactics is minimized and the team has a technical role. Teachers are only useful for the production of learning material implementing an educational vision imposed from above. Interaction between teachers and students is discouraged. We argue that, from this position, didactic collaboration with researchers was not possible for teachers. On the other hand, based on our study of the project’s practice, we argue that gain of a different kind has been achieved in this collaboration between researchers and teachers. It is about gaining a voice in the educational reform taking place right now, where the position of the (subject matter) teacher in secondary school practice (Ardui et al., 2012) is at stake. Via requests and reactions, we know that the project publications have reached actors exerting pressure on teachers, and actors having decision power on changes affecting teachers’ practice. But whose voice is it that has been gained? Is it the teachers’ or the researchers’ voice? We argue that it is a new, common voice that could only come to existence by a (problematic) collaboration of researchers and teachers.

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