The First Nobel Prize Laureates Meeting in St Petersburg was held in 2003. It was followed by the Second St Petersburg Meeting "Science and Society" in 2005. St Petersburg Scientific Forum "Science and Society. Research and Education in Nanotechnology" — the Third Nobel Prize Laureates Meeting — took place on June 22–27, 2008 and and St Petersburg Scientific Forum "Science and Society. Informational Technologies" — the Fourth Nobel Prize Laureates Meeting — was held on September 21–25, 2009.

The main theme of the 2010 Forum is sociology and economics in the 21st Century.

The Forum is organized at the initiative and with the support of St Petersburg Government, St Petersburg Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), St Petersburg Academic University — Nanotechnology Research and Educational Centre the RAS, Foundation for Support of Education and Science (Alferov's Foundation).

The key points of the programme are the following:

1. The world after the crisis: correction of the strategy of sustainable development
2. The progress of world civilization: science and education as a factor of development. Breakthrough technologies
3. Economy and man: the role of a man in economic system, health economics
4. Modernization of the Russian economy
5. Mathematical methods in economics and computer simulating of economic systems
6. Energy and ecological limits on the development. Resource-dependence and economic growth
7. Modernization of social and economic space: globalization and regionalization
8. Economic freedom and the role of the state in the economy. Ways of overcoming social and economic inequality