On June 2, the Sociological Forum “Social Research in the Digital Age: Trends and Challenges” continued its work in Almaty. The event was organized by the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan (KazISS) in cooperation with Narxoz University.
The second day of the forum opened with a strategic session titled “The Future of Social Research in Kazakhstan: New Standards, Technologies, and Trust,” bringing together representatives of research centers, government agencies, universities, research companies, digital platforms, and international experts.
The strategic session was moderated by KazISS Director Zhandos Shaimardanov, who invited members of the sociological community to discuss joint approaches to the further development of sociology in Kazakhstan and the challenges facing the research community in the context of digital transformation.
Particular attention during the session was given to improving data quality, developing national research infrastructure, introducing digital technologies, and strengthening public trust in the results of sociological research.
As part of the forum’s second day, two practical workshops were also held.
Tatiana Karabchuk, Associate Professor at UAE University and member of the Executive Committee of the World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR), conducted a training session on preparing academic publications based on sociological research findings. Participants discussed current requirements of international scientific journals, research design development, literature review preparation, hypothesis formulation, and the presentation of data analysis results.
The second workshop was led by Aisulu Moldabekova, Head of the ZertteuLab Laboratory at the Institute of Economics under the Science Committee of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The seminar focused on modern approaches to collecting and analyzing socio-economic data using digital tools.
The expert presented opportunities for utilizing digital footprints, social media data, administrative sources, search queries, and mobile data in social research. Special attention was paid to mixed-method research designs that combine traditional sociological methods with big data analysis, as well as modern tools for web scraping, machine learning, and natural language processing.
Forum participants noted that the development of digital technologies creates new opportunities for studying social processes. At the same time, it requires the continuous improvement of research methodologies, the training of a new generation of specialists, and the development of sustainable data infrastructure.
