PURPOSE Interprofessional education (IPE) is a key approach in preparing health professions students to work as part of a collaborative team to provide safe and effective patient care. IPE requires significant investment and resources to work effectively. One vital but often overlooked resource is the team of diverse educators who prepare and deliver IPE. Healthcare educators usually learn their pedagogical skills in their own professional silos, with their own guidance, standards and expectations of what educators within their unique profession should know and do. This can cause additional communication challenges within educational collaborations. METHODS We conducted a detailed five-phase study to develop a broad interprofessional consensus on the values and activities that all healthcare educators share, regardless of primary profession or discipline. Methods included an online survey, analysis of 48 existing professional standards and guidance documents for healthcare educators, nominal group and Delphi studies and a novel consensus-building workshop. RESULTS An authoritative set of nine key values and 25 activities was developed. The activities are grouped within four domains (preparation for teaching, teaching and supporting learning, progress and quality). There was a strong degree of consensus in most areas, indicating that the values to which healthcare educators adhere are largely universal, and the activities identified by the study are transferable and relevant to all healthcare professions educators. CONCLUSION While each healthcare profession has its own distinctive body of clinical knowledge and expertise, in educational terms they share much common ground. Our study adds constructively to the academic foundations of IPE by demonstrating that it is possible to reach consensus on a set of generic values and activities that can be applied to healthcare educators at all levels across a wide range of professions.