As we move into the second year of our tenure as editors of the British Educational Research Journal, we offer some reflections on the state of educational research in the UK and beyond, particularly in relation to recent developments in research policy and research practice. We argue that in addition to enhancing the usefulness of educational research, that is, its capacity for solving problems, there is an ongoing need for research that identifies problems and, in that sense, causes problems. This kind of research challenges taken for granted assumptions about what is going on and what should be going on, and speaks back to expectations from policy and practice, not in order to deny such expectations but to engage in an ongoing debate about the legitimacy of such expectations – a debate that crucially should have a public quality and hence should take place in the public domain.