In an era where Top conferences for social sciences in India digital innovation and social transformation are happening at unprecedented pace, the Top conferences for social sciences in India International Summit on Social Sciences, Technology & Social Change (ISSSTSC-2025) brings together scholars, practitioners, policymakers and technologists to examine the dynamic interface between human society and emerging technologies. The Summit seeks to foster a rich multidisciplinary dialogue on how social sciences can both interpret and shape the technological forces driving social change — and how, in turn, technology is reshaping cultural, ethical, economic and political life.

Summit Vision & Theme
The core premise of ISSSTSC-2025 is that technology is not simply a tool, but a social actor: it both reflects and influences human values, norms and behaviours. At the same time, social sciences offer critical lenses to understand how technology is embedded within social systems, how power and equity are structured, and how change unfolds at individual, community and institutional levels. ISSSTSC-2025 invites contributions that explore this reciprocal relationship: how social sciences inform technology design, deployment and governance; and how technology reconfigures domains such as identity, labour, policy, education, community, culture and governance.

Under the overarching theme “Society in the Digital Age: Constructing Futures”, the Summit invites research, case-studies, conceptual explorations and policy analyses in three broad interlinked tracks:

1. Technology, Innovation & Social Structure
   This track considers how technologies (AI, big data, IoT, virtual/augmented realities, digital platforms) are penetrating social structures — from the workplace to the family, from urban governance to education. Questions include: How are technological innovations reshaping labour markets, social networks, mobility, urban design or community life? What social scientific methods can help understand these transformations? How do issues of access, exclusion, digital divides and power dynamics play out?

2. Social Change, Culture & Ethics
   Here, the focus is on how technology intersects with culture, values, and ethics. Themes may include: digital identity and community; algorithmic bias and fairness; surveillance, privacy and autonomy; the role of social media and platform governance in shaping public discourse; cultural adaptation to technological change; and the ethics of design and innovation. Social scientists, ethicists and technologists are encouraged to explore how technological change is experienced and contested within different sociocultural settings.

3. Policy, Governance & Future Societies
   The third track emphasises the policy and governance dimension: how societies and institutions manage technological change, build resilient systems, regulate emerging technologies, and plan for inclusive futures. Topics include: smart cities and civic technologies; global governance of AI and data; digital health and public policy; education and workforce policy in a tech-driven economy; and designing governance frameworks that ensure technology contributes to human development, equity and sustainability.

Why This Summit Matters
In recent years, rapid technological advances have triggered fundamental shifts in how we live, work and govern. However, many of these shifts are happening faster than our social science frameworks, policy instruments and institutional capacities can adapt. ISSSTSC-2025 offers a unique platform where social scientists and technology specialists can collaborate, bridging disciplinary silos to co-create understanding and solutions.

For example, educational systems are being transformed by online platforms and AI-assisted learning—but what does that mean for pedagogy, equity and social mobility? Urban governance is experimenting with smart city technologies—but how does this affect community engagement, data justice and participatory democracy? Workplaces are shifting with automation—but what is the impact on human dignity, labour rights and societal cohesion? By bringing these questions into the open, ISSSTSC-2025 helps ensure that technological innovation is socially informed, ethically grounded and oriented toward inclusive change.

Target Audience & Participants
The Summit is designed to attract a broad spectrum of participants, including:

• Academic researchers in sociology, anthropology, psychology, political science, economics, education, communication, human geography and related fields.

• Technology professionals and innovators interested in the social implications of their work (designers, developers, data scientists, platform architects).

• Policymakers, regulators, civic leaders and practitioners working at the intersection of technology and society.

• Educators, community organisers, NGOs and social entrepreneurs engaged in technology-mediated social change.

• Graduate students and early-career researchers seeking interdisciplinary exposure and networking opportunities.

Format & Highlights
ISSSTSC-2025 will be held as a hybrid event (in-person + virtual) to maximise accessibility and global participation. The standard format includes:

• Keynote lectures by eminent scholars and industry leaders who operate at the nexus of social sciences and technology.

• Parallel sessions aligned with the three tracks above, offering a mixture of empirical papers, theoretical reflections and practitioner panels.

• Workshops and interactive sessions, for example on designing socially aware technologies, data ethics labs, or citizen-science interventions in tech policy.

• Poster sessions and early-career networking, offering opportunities for emerging scholars to present their work, receive feedback and gain visibility.

• Panel discussions and roundtables bringing cross-sector perspectives (academia, industry, policy, NGOs) to discuss frontier issues.

• Publication opportunities: Selected papers from the Summit will be fast-tracked for special issues in peer-reviewed journals, edited volumes or open-access collections.

Why India & Global Relevance
Although the Summit is international in scope, hosting it in an Indian or South Asian context (or with strong relevance to that region) offers unique advantages: India is one of the fastest-growing digital societies, with vast variation in socioeconomic strata, strong tradition of social science research, and emergent technology ecosystems (including mobile technologies, digital governance initiatives, start-ups, and social innovation). Hence ISSSTSC-2025 can act as a bridge between Global North experiences and Global South realities, enabling dialogue that is globally informed but locally grounded.

In an age of ‘leap-frogging technologies’ (mobile, fintech, e-governance) and complex social change, the Indian context provides rich empirical terrain: issues of digital inclusion, language diversity, rural-urban divides, cultural plurality, informal economies and governance innovations are all in motion. Insights from such settings enrich global theorising and practice. The Summit thus welcomes papers from India and adjacent regions, and encourages comparative work that links contexts across regions.

Outcomes & Impact
The intended outcomes of ISSSTSC-2025 include:

• A published collection of peer-reviewed papers reflecting cutting-edge research at the interface of social sciences and technology.

• Policy-oriented briefs and practitioner guides derived from discussion threads on governance, equity and social innovation.

• Creation of interdisciplinary networks and collaborations across institutions, sectors & countries.

• A “declaration” or consensus statement summarising key insights, ethical imperatives and best practices emerging from the Summit, aimed at influencing technology-policy agendas and research priorities.

Call for Contributions
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit abstracts (typically 300–500 words) aligned with the three tracks mentioned above. Abstracts should indicate the research problem, methodology, findings (or expected findings), and implications for social science-technology-society interplay. Full papers will be due later (e.g., 4,000–6,000 words) for those selected. Workshops and panel proposals are also welcome.

Why Attend?
Attending ISSSTSC-2025 offers participants the chance to:

• Engage with interdisciplinary colleagues and build new partnerships across social science, technology and policy realms.

• Gain exposure to emerging themes (e.g., algorithmic governance, digital labour, platform society, data justice) and apply these to your own context.

• Contribute to the shaping of socially robust technology-policy frameworks and research agendas.

• Publish and disseminate work in high-visibility forums and connect with global peers.

• Experience a rich event environment where ideas meet practice, and social change is driven through knowledge, technology and collaboration.

Conclusion
As technology accelerates, so too must our social scientific thinking and institutional responses. The International Summit on Social Sciences, Technology & Social Change (ISSSTSC-2025) positions itself as a timely, important and ambitious gathering: one that acknowledges that the future of society is being written not only in code and platforms, but in the social fabric that they reshape. By bringing together voices from research, design, governance and community, the Summit offers a venue where we can not only understand change, but also steer it — toward more equitable, inclusive and human-centred technological futures.