Have key research centres brought about a significant change in the quality, quantity and impact of vocational education and training research in their particular fields? This article offers a personal response to this question through the authors experience with the Monash University-ACER Centre for the Economics of Education and Training (CEET). It reflects on the ways in which the organisation's structure as a research centre enables a different way of doing vocational education and training research than individual researchers loosely linked together and on the processes of concentration and focus which lead to research of higher quality and greater impact.