“Career Designing: Research and Counselling” is a new international journal meant to be a forum for diverse and competing philosophies and practices of career designing and counselling. The publication of both theoretical and empirical research about career designing will advance the field by enabling readers to analyse, evaluate, and develop their own effective strategic employment of human resources in the education system, labour market, and global economy in the context of fast changing challenges of knowledge economy. Being published in both the Lithuanian and English languages the journal offers local researchers and practitioners to join together in international discussions with the researchers, practitioners, and policy makers aimed at resolving issues and problems in career education (choosing profession) and planning (further career development) issues. We expect the journal to contribute to the intense dialogue between the researchers and practitioners of Lithuania, Europe and overall global academic society by obtaining supplementary information about progressing changes in vocational and career counselling field. This intellectual cooperation is supremely relevant for Lithuania being a member of the European Union and aiming to join both the European Vocational Training Area (The Copenhagen Declaration, 2002; The Maastricht Communiqué, 2004) and Higher Education Area (The Bologna Process, 1999).

The journal is structured in two sections - research and counselling.

The journal has two sections that deal with research and counselling as well as realities. The first section includes basic, comparative, and applied research on career designing. Articles in this section will seek to initiate conceptual discussions on new philosophies and theories of career designing, their impact on changes in vocational and career counselling, methodologies for assessment of aptitudes, abilities, skills and competences. In particular this section will publish articles on a system of career designing that fosters discussions among researchers of different lingual and cultural background. We expect that articles in this section will facilitate the systematization of career designing phenomena in future including determining the conceptions and terms that indicate them. Therefore in some cases the authors are asked to define and name fundamental concepts being researched in the provided publications.

The second section is intended for both national and international researchers and institutions. It will publish texts that provide information about initiated juridical acts and laws, highlight publications and research reports, report on national and international projects covering career designing issues, and announce conferences along with all the outcomes being relevant for the development of career designing culture in different education and labour market sectors in Lithuania and abroad.

“Career Designing: Research and Counselling” is, first of all, assigned for teachers working in secondary and vocational education sector, vocational training centres, as well as scholars working in colleges, academies and universities. It is also aimed to suit the interests of higher forms pupils, students, career designing institutes, career planning centres, vocational counselling centres, counsellors working in the labour exchange and private offices, specialists in different fields – politicians, employers, scientists, practitioners, graduates and other stakeholders being involved in planning the strategic development and practical application of human capital, including all those carrying out research, studies and being concerned with career designing and planning issues.