Editorial for special issue of Journal of Research in Post Compulsory Education. The articles published here come from authors working from various perspectives and contextual backgrounds. Authors are variously working as lecturers in further education, leadership roles in colleges and universities, lecturers and researchers in universities, nomadic educators and independent researchers. You would be forgiven for perhaps entertaining the idea that this would lead to a wildly diverse set of interests, problematics, hypotheses and perspectives, and in some ways it does (with respect to focus). Perhaps a little surprisingly though, this seemingly disparate set of papers collectively talks to key themes that emerge from their pages. Threads of hope, empowerment, resistance, creativity, real innovation, equality and fairness, stitch together these pages and collectively tell a story greater than the sum of their parts. Combined voices speaking through the whole and offering, in many ways, a chance to see how the many different parts of post compulsory education can feed into a narrative that speaks to the collective as a whole.