This article offers an initial account of the Teacher Education Research Network (TERN), a pilot education research capacity building project funded by the ESRC and designed to test a 'social practices' model for building an educational research infrastructure across England. The TERN project is still running at the time of writing, so it is not yet possible to offer a full evaluation or a theorised analysis of the project. Setting the initiative within the regional context of teacher education in the North West of England, the article describes elements of the project and begins to explore their significance, drawing on early evaluation data. The article adapts Charles Desforges' equation of research capacity building as 'Capacity = expertise motivation opportunities' as a frame for this exploration.