Futures frameworks help researchers and policymakers think systematically about what might lie ahead. But what happens when the social, political, technological, and ecological conditions on which those frameworks were built begin changing?

Vanessa Schweizer, Kristie Ebi, Bas van Ruijven, Paula Harrison, and Kasper Kok are guest editing a special issue of Futures that asks how socioeconomic futures frameworks can evolve to better support sustainability action.

Contributions can rethink or extend approaches such as the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, including how they deal with uncertainty, changing conditions, and more diverse possibilities for societal transformation.

The call may be particularly relevant to TC members working with scenarios, anticipatory governance, transformation pathways, or the relationship between imagining futures and acting in the present.

Submission deadline: 3 January 2027