This article discusses the first stages of the work of the Teacher Education Group (TEG) in building research capacity in teacher education research and identifies the potential of the model adopted for future European initiatives in the field. The TEG work is part of the second phase of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP), based on an embedded social practices model of research capacity building. The article opens by outlining the broad context of research capacity building initiatives and identifying general factors which create concerns about the sustainability of teacher education research in the United Kingdom. It then describes the initial impetus, within the TEG, for the creation of an up-to-date annotated mapping of current research in teacher education and outlines the practices used to generate the model used for the mapping. In conclusion, the article discusses some of the methodological, ethical and epistemological issues raised by the mapping exercise and the challenges ahead in disseminating and embedding the initiative. (Contains 3 notes.)