Through reflection on the First International iPED Conference 2006, and its overarching theme of "Pedagogical Research and Academic Identities", this paper considers the achievement of the wider aims of the conference, which were to facilitate dialogue between researchers in order to explore the conference themes collaboratively, and to provide networking opportunities which would enable participants to build alliances. The abstracts for all papers mentioned are available via the conference website www.coventry.ac.uk/iped2006.