The process of Europeanisation is closely linked to the process of an emerging European Educational Research Area and an education research identity. The European Conferences on Educational Research (ECER), European Educational Research Association (EERA) and its networks are involved in new directions and strands of educational research in particular European nations as well as in processes to construct a common European Educational Research Area. ECER to a large extent contributes to such developments both as observer and actor. Against the background of diverse functions and contexts of ECER for communication on and development of educational research in Europe, the authors describe some small-scale research studies about ECER that have been carried out during the past ten years dealing with attendance motives and assessments of ECER, and provide content analyses of proposal abstracts of ECER. In doing so, they would like to present a mirror to EERA at its 20th anniversary that could contribute to further systematic self-observation and self-governance of EERA and ECERs as vivid, inspiring, powerful, discursive, democratic and scholarly high-standing conferences in the future.