Tyrimų erdvės išplėtimas ugdant edukologijos mokslininkus

The article discusses changing area of educational research, its birth influencing processes, and changes of doctoral studies, while training educational scientists. Educational research trends and significance are formed in international political documents, by stressing educational research development, significance of researchers’ training, master and dissemination of knowledge, and development of educational scientists’ competence. The main role in expansion of educational research is appointed for scientific schools at universities. There are two networks organizing educational doctoral studies: Vytautas Magnus University together with Klaipeda University, Mykolas Romeris University, Vilnius university, and Aveiro University in Portugal and Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences together with Kaunas University of Technology. The research areas of the two networks are partially coincident at the moment. However, they are also different, bound up on the traditions that exist in the universities, research staff involvement in international projects, and academic relations. The activity period of networks is recent – they have been created only in the middle of 2011. So there is not sufficient data to evaluate them, and the wide volume of research topics does not ensure internationality and quality. The main article focus is on the scientific contribution of prof. M. Barkauskaitė and her colleagues from Vilnius Pedagogical University (recently renamed at Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences or LEU) in training of educational scientists. Prof. M. Barkauskaitė has actively participated in the training of educational scientists, as she has been the head of educational doctoral studies. She has also participated in various projects, analysed ongoing processes and provided her insights and recommendations. Her critical remarks have contributed to the development of educational doctoral studies and facilitated the collaboration in inter-university field.