On October of 2016 the V All-Russian sociological congress “Sociology and society: social inequality and social justice” took place in Yekaterinburg. The organizers of this event were Russian society of sociologists, Sociology Institute of RAS, UrFU and the government of Sverdlovsk oblast. For more details about this forum we have asked to tell us Elvira Symanyuk, the director of Institute of social and political sciences of UrFU, Professor and Doctor of Psychology. As the guest of the journal “Discussion” believes, the urgency of this congress is conditioned by a set of important factors. Taking into account the growth of the world economy, some problems must be solved as poverty, ecological situation worsening, unemployment, political instability, social tension and war conflicts. Sociological researches can and must be a base for formation of social policy allowing moderation of growing negative phenomena in our society. The main ways of fundamental and applied sociology are study of social inequality ’s appearance ’ reasons, tendencies of deepening or weakening of differentiation ’s features and reaction ’s experience to negative social indicators.