In our advance publicity materials we said that Research into Practice 2006 would “explore the instrumentality of the context on the reception of artefacts as constituting or contributing to research”. This is part of a series of questions posed since 2000 that represent our on-going problem analysis of the relationship of research and professional practice:2000: foundational concepts in practice-based research2002: the nature of knowledge2004: the role of the artefact2006: the role of contextWhy did we focus this year on context? What did we mean our questions? Perhaps this can be answered in advance of hearing from our contributors by identifying some keywords that lie ahead: