Sweden has had the national experimental activity known as ULF – development, learning and research – running since 2017 as an investment in practice-oriented research. This study is carried out within the framework of ULF. More specifically, this study is based on experiences from two research circles with lead teachers in a rural area during 2021/2022. Through autoethnography, not only teachers’ experiences of research circles are made visible, but also those of the researchers. Here, the empirical basis also consists of the researchers’ personal stories with the aim of exploring, describing, and analyzing the research circle as a process from an inside perspective. The empirical material has been analyzed from the perspective of mediated discourse analysis (MDA). The result shows how the research circles come to constitute an epistemological development, a change of perspectives among the lead teachers. The result also shows how the research circles generate experience of autonomy. This enables the lead teachers to conduct their own school development projects in the future, such as classroom interventions with their own pupils. We argue that the research circles have an emancipatory function since they theorize the social relationship of learning.