About Institute for Forecasting

Institute for Forecasting - basic information

Institute for Forecasting, Slovak Academy of Sciences was founded in 1989. Since 2015, the Institute for Forecasting of the Slovak Academy of Sciences has been a part of the Centre of Social and Psychological Sciences of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. This centre was established on the basis of the charter of October 1, 2015 by the merger of the Institute for Forecasting, the Institute of Experimental Psychology and the Institute of Social Sciences.

The subject of the activities of the Institute for Forecasting is interdisciplinary basic and applied research in the areas of:

• theoretical, methodological and conceptual problems of forecasting the development of Slovak society in the national and global context
• the socio-economic dimension of global environmental change
• coevolution of institutional and technological change

The strategic goal The strategic goal of the Institute for Forecasting is to carry out basic and applied research to understand and manage global and local economic, social and environmental issues. The multidisciplinary team of researchers is one of the leaders in the Slovak Republic in identifying global challenges and proposing strategic solutions for economic and social policies. A team of experts combines academic research with practice. It seeks to promote public policies based on data and quality information and to enter into public debate at international, regional and national levels.

The approach to solving tasks is based on cooperation. IF SAS experts work in interdisciplinary teams and create expert communities that deal with analysis and research. Experts of the Slovak Academy of Sciences cooperate with researchers in the European Union and beyond in informal and formal research and project-oriented networks.

The strong point of the Slovak Academy of Sciences is the application of science for practice. Interdisciplinary research focuses on analyses and development strategies in the transformation process from the perspective of sustainable development, building social and economic cohesion and employment and access to economic and environmental resources, and trend analysis in the context of social and economic development.

Publications: The Institute ensures the publication of the results of scientific research activities of employees through monographs, proceedings, periodicals and non-periodicals. The institute publishes a peer-reviewed "Foresight, Analysis and Recommendations - FAR" (ISSN 1337-9666). The institute continues to be a co-publisher of the CC periodical "The Economic Journal".

At present, there are 69 book publications registered in the database of the institute's publishing activities, of which seven are available in the online database of the Central Library of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and 213 articles are registered in the Web of Science database. The popularization of research results is ensured by frequent appearances of the institute's top employees on television, radio and the press.

Clients of IF SAS are central state administration offices, in particular the Office of the Government of the Slovak Republic, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for Investment and Informatization, the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs and Family, and the Ministry of the Environment. Abroad, the most important partners are the European Commission (Directorates-General DG Research and Innovation, DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, DG Environment, DG Regional and Urban Policy, Joint Research Center of the European Union). IF SAS experts also work for international organizations such as the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), UNEP, and others.

The Institute for Forecasting is a leader in the development of methodology, research and practice in the field of evaluation studies. The experts IF SAS were the coordinator of the ex-ante evaluation of the Partnership Agreement of the Slovak Republic and we led several large-scale evaluation projects in the area of impacts of cohesion policies.

Within the framework of international projects the IF SAS helps to solve the issue of social entrepreneurship in the European Union, we work on mitigation and adaptation measures in the field of climate change.