'So Far, So Good...?':Reflections on the Theme of 2017's Annual Workshop

Why is the future a topic for social science? Why was it one for the ISRF’s 2017 Annual Workshop? The theme answers to the focus of the ISRF on ‘real-life’ problems; the ones we have now, and the ones we might encounter in the future having all too often brought them upon ourselves. As we tell our students, the social world is an object of study for us because we are curious about what happens to us and want to understand things now, and also because we want to act so as to secure or at least to influence the future in our favour. We want, that is, the best possible future we can imagine