What are the possible futures for educational research? The essay concerns two intertwined agendas. The first agenda is empirical and concerns how educational policy and leadership constitute, circulate, transform and modify feelings, moods and affects. Especially, motivation, engagement and the desire for learning are targets for policy and leadership technologies. This possible scenario is an affective edu-future that has connections to new modes of governance through standards and thereby present ways of leading educational organisations and the affective fabric hereof. The second agenda concerns the identification of suitable methodologies for researching and critiquing this affective edu-future and its performative effects. This brings me to the learning laboratory as an affective methodology and the possibility of affirmative critiques.