Professor Jen Cleland was one of the keynote speakers at the Association for the Study of Medical Education (ASME) Researching Medical Education Conference, Friend’s Meeting House, London, November 2016. Jen was invited to speak on the topic “Does educational research matter?”. Jen focused on the need to balance process and outcomes research, to understand and explain the how and the why as well as the what. Jen said “It was so nice to be invited to speak at a meeting which has a very special place in the medical education research community, and which I have attended as a participant many times over the years.”