V. Elmeev — founder of the concept of applied sociology at St. Petersburg State University

This article relates V. Ya. Yelmeev’s original and innovative argumentation and development of applied sociology as a specific function of Sociology. It is connected with application of sociological laws and principles to particular social problems in order to solve them. Such understanding of applied sociology is not generally accepted by Russian Sociology which identifies it with empirical studies that don’t necessarily change social objects. Yelmeev’s idea based on materialistic analysis justifies transition from “knowledge-description” to “knowledge-prescription”, from practice to theory and from theory to practice. It defines methodological borders of methods and models of solving the complicated crisis associated with social situations in contemporary Russian society. The staff of the department of applied and sectoral sociology which was created by Yelmeev continues its work, concentrating on development of conceptions and methods of sociology of practice, on training specialists in social innovations, social engineering and social technologies