This article reports on an investigation into the role of academic identity within collaborative research in higher education in South Africa. The study was informed by the literature on academic identities, collaborative research and communities of practice. It was located within a multi-site study, with involvement of researcher collaborators from eight South African higher education institutions. Eighteen academic development practitioners recorded their perceptions of their participation in one higher education research project. An analysis of the research team members' experiences of participating in the first phase of the research project lent credence to the factors influencing participants' academic identities. The study found that collaborative research provided potential for knowledge generation and personal and professional growth, but noted that in order to enable participation, attention needs to be paid to the interrelationship between researchers' academic individual and collective identities and their sense of expertise in the field of educational research.