Call for Abstracts. Special Issue "Sociology of the Future and the Future of Socio-Economic Research"

2025-10-22

The journal Monitoring of Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes announces a call for applications for a Special Issue "Sociology of the Future and the Future of Socio-Economic Research".

Guest editors of the Issue: Cand. Sci. (Polit.) Valery V. Fedorov (Analytical Center VCIOM, Financial University), Dr. Sci. (Psych.) Timofei A. Nestik (Institute of Psychology of RAS, Faculty of Psychology at Moscow State University, School of Anthropology of the Future at RANEPA), and Dr. Sci. (Econ.) Alexander A. Shirov (Institute of Economic Forecasting of RAS).

Accelerating technological progress, the increasingly frequent occurrence of so-called “black swans", and growing uncertainty in a variety of forms—these characteristics of the current stage of global development simultaneously complicate the tasks of planning and forecasting the future and heighten the demand for such forecasts. At the same time, sociological forecasting, that is, predicting the future dynamics of various social processes and the transformation of social relations is one of the most controversial and complex areas, especially because the forecast itself becomes a factor in social change and might alter the trajectory of development.

How valid are attempts to study the future of society in such circumstances? Can forecasting in sociology and socioeconomic research rely not only on formal analytical tools and methods, but also on fantastical scenarios borrowed from the predictions of techno-optimists or even literature? What social processes and psychological mechanisms underlie the construction of a collective image of the future? What role do various sociological forecasts play in the development of society? And what can we say about the probable scenarios and main drivers of future social development today?

We invite authors to discuss these issues within the Special Issue dedicated to sociology and socio-economic research of the future of the Monitoring of Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes Journal.

The purpose of this Special Issue is to explore public expectations, demands, and concerns regarding the future in the broadest sense, to develop a vision of future society, both near and distant, and to highlight the range of possibilities and limitations of sociological research into the future and sociological forecasting.

The editors will consider applications on sociology of the future and prognostic research. Priority is given to the following research areas:

  • forecasting, scenario analysis, and foresight in sociology and socioeconomic research;
  • the image of future society and development scenarios for Russia and the world;
  • interdisciplinarity in social forecasting;
  • social processes and psychological mechanisms for constructing the image of the future of Russia and the world;
  • the perception of technology and its role in shaping social relations and inequalities in the future, techno-optimism and techno-pessimism, and the relationship between humans and technology;
  • the role of science fiction in scientific progress and forecasting;
  • the influence of forecasting and futures studies on social behavior—the self-fulfilling prophecy in futures studies.

We accept studies based on quantitative or qualitative methods of sociological analysis using official statistics, population surveys, big data, materials of in-depth interviews, focus groups, or other information sources. A mandatory requirement for articles is to justify the choice of the theoretical framework of the work, research methodology, and data sources.

Applications for the Special Issue are accepted by email (biryukova_s@wciom.com) until November 20, 2025. Please indicate the following subject when sending the letter: “Application for a Special Issue — Sociology of the Future”. The application must include:

  • Title of the article;
  • Brief information about the authors (position and place of work, contact email);
  • Abstract to the article of 300 to 600 words, containing the main purpose of the study and brief information about the theoretical framework of the work, research hypotheses, information about the methods used in the work and its empirical basis (data).

Applications are accepted in Russian or English.

The deadline for making decisions on applications is December 20, 2025.

The deadline for preparing full-text articles for selected applications is February 25, 2026. Full texts for selected applications are accepted through the Journal website (https://www.monitoringjournal.ru/) and must meet the requirements for manuscripts described in the Author Guidelines section: https://www.monitoringjournal.ru/index.php/monitoring/about/submissions.

The planned publication date of the Special Issue is November 2026.