The Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE), as the peak professional body for education researchers in Australia, has strong interest in supporting high quality research and research capacity in the field of education in the Australian higher education sector. In this report, the 'Protecting and extending research in education in Australia' Working Party, established at the AARE Annual General Meeting in 2017, reports on results of the "Mapping Research Opportunities in the Field of Education in Australia Survey" as part of a symposium workshop at the AARE Annual Conference 2019, and also at the 2019 Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Association. Key findings from the survey include: (1) 46% of respondents were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with their research workload allocation, even without taking into account invisible work that reduced that allocation; and (2) 48% of respondents found their workloads unmanageable. Implications for education research futures are also discussed in this report. These implications raise questions about both the short and longer-term viability of research in education. Thus there must be consideration of an inter-generational academic politics that pursues: workload justice; keeping teaching and research connected (against trends that separate them); and broadening the numbers and range of education academics with time and opportunity to grow as researchers.