Valdai Club

On March 15, 2017, The Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) in cooperation with the Valdai Discussion Club will hold a panel discussion, titled "What will be the society of the future?", in the framework of the VII Sociological Grushin Conference.

Today in the world there are a lot of various ratings and indicators - economy development indicators, indicators of institutions, democracy etc. All of them have one important limitation: the development, understood as simple quantitative growth, does not lead to a qualitative transition in itself, from one state to another. The image of the future includes technological breakthroughs, cultural transformations, social relations, new governance systems and other areas, where changes can be decisive for our society on the horizon of 15-20 years.

An attempt to look into the future is basis of the joint project of the Russian Public Opinion Research Center and the Valdai Discussion Club, titled "Future Preparedness Index ". The idea of the project is to predict what will determine the success of states in the medium term (in 15-20 years) and to try to assess how successfully the present states look "at the start of the race into the future" in different parameters.

We assume that one of the key factors of the success of the state of the future will be the condition of society. The task is to understand how society will look in the successful future states, what features of this future society can be caught now, to figure out how to measure these features. To do this, it is necessary to form the image of a "man of the future", to presume how social relations will change, to imagine what features will be inherent in the society of a successful (attractive for talented people) state.

Speakers:

• Valery Fedorov, General Director of VTsIOM
• Igor Zadorin - Director General of ZIRCON Research Group
• Alexey Firsov, Director of Communications, RUSNANO
• Denis Terekhov - Managing Partner of the "Social Networks" Agency 
• Dmitry Ivanov, Doctor of Sociology, Professor at the Department of Theory and History of Sociology, St. Petersburg State University (SPSU)

Moderator:

Andrey Bystritskiy, Chairman of the Board of the Foundation for Development and Support of the Valdai Discussion Club

Issues for discussion:

1. How will social relations change under the influence of new technologies?
2. What features will be characteristic of the "society of the future", attractive for talented people?
3. If we want to predict "future preparedness", how important is it to talk about the society? Or can everything be reduced to the quality of life?
4. What society characteristics of the future can we determine today?

Information for media: to attend, please fill the accreditation form  on the VtSIOM web site