The REAL Research Collective (RRC) is an international grouping of researchers from (so far) Europe, Africa and North America. RRC was inaugurated in 2014 at ECER in Porto, Portugal for the purpose of exploring the Real in its material, symbolic, phenomenological, discursive, magic, religious, embodied etc. presence in the world and how dealing or not dealing with this, the Real, affects research and researchers in education and sustainable development.