What will our economy be like in the next 50 years?

How can we transform it based on justice, inclusion, sustainability, and resilience? As the country confronts climate change, AI, digitisation, labour market transformation, and shifting global trade dynamics, the need for deeper, more grounded and yet futureproof thinking has become urgent.

Next50 Bangladesh invites abstracts for an edited volume titled Just Transformations in Business, Economy, and Finance, engaging these questions through rigorous, forward-looking, and action-oriented contributions.

We welcome work that connects research with policy, industry, and practice—speaking to real-world challenges and future pathways. Contributors from academia, policy, business, and community contexts are encouraged to submit ideas that can shape the direction of Bangladesh’s future.

This upcoming volume seeks to bring together rigorous, forward-looking, and action-oriented perspectives on Bangladesh’s future business, economic, and financial transformation. Building on the collaborative and interdisciplinary spirit of the first volume, this edition aims to create a platform for scholars, practitioners, policymakers, innovators, and emerging voices to jointly reflect on the pressing transformations shaping Bangladesh over the next 50 years.

At a time when Bangladesh is confronting the intertwined realities of climate change, digitisation, labour market transformation, financial restructuring, technological disruption, and shifting global trade relations, this volume asks a central question: what kind of economy should Bangladesh build for its future, and on what principles of justice, inclusion, sustainability, and resilience should that future rest? The volume is conceived as an impact-oriented publication, designed not merely as an academic collection, but as a bridge between research, policy, industry, and practical action. Contributions should therefore combine analytical rigour with clarity, accessibility, and relevance for a wide audience, including policymakers, investors, development practitioners, and business leaders. 

We welcome contributions from a broad range of disciplines and professional backgrounds, including but not limited to economics, finance, accounting, management, marketing, international business, entrepreneurship, labour studies, climate policy, development studies, supply chain and logistics, banking, digital commerce, artificial intelligence, insurance, social business, agriculture, and innovation ecosystems. Contributors may include established academics, early-career researchers, industry professionals, policymakers, development practitioners, and community or creative voices whose work engages meaningfully with the future of business and the economy in Bangladesh. Collaborative and co-authored submissions across disciplines, sectors, and career stages are especially encouraged.

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Why This Next50 Volume Is Special

This is not just another edited volume. It is a future-facing book as a platform for bold ideas that can shape the direction of business, economy, and finance toward 2050. Blending research, practice, and strategic insight, the volume goes beyond analysis to offer vision, influence, and real-world relevance. It brings together voices from academia, policy, industry, and public thought to position Bangladesh-linked ideas within a wider global conversation. This Next50 Book in the series is exclusively unique as it is aimed to be:

• not just academic, not just practitioner-driven, but rather a mix of the two, with a vision;

• out of the box, research-informed, and realistically application-oriented;

• strategic, future-oriented, and impact-focused;

• open to bold, original, and interdisciplinary perspectives;

• ·rooted in Bangladesh, with global relevance and reach.

If you would like to explore volume 1 on Built Environment that was published by UPL in 2025, please click here.

Indicative Themes for this Volume

Potential contributors are invited to engage with one or more of the volume’s thematic areas, including:

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• Capital markets and financial governance

• International business and global trade

• The commons and community economies

• Fintech and digital financial infrastructures

• Rural, situated, and plural economies

• Climate finance and ecological economics

• Risk, insurance, and the social contract

• Labour, skills, and the future of work

• Artificial intelligence and the future of business

• Ethical/Islamic finance and alternative logics of value

• Enterprise, SMEs, industry, and innovation ecosystems

• Agriculture and rural development

• Social business and inclusive enterprise

• Banking and financial governance

• E-business and digital commerce

• Supply chain and logistics transformation

• Poverty, vulnerability, and inequality

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Submission Guidelines

Authors are invited to submit an abstract of 300–500 words outlining the proposed contribution, its relevance to the selected theme, and its intended impact for policy, practice, business, or public debate. Selected contributors will then be invited to develop a full chapter or essay for inclusion in the volume. According to the publication framework, contributions should be evidence-based, analytically robust, interdisciplinary where possible, and written in a language that remains accessible beyond narrow academic audiences. In other words, this book should be imagined as a book for policymakers, changemakers and the interested general audience with whom ideas about the future of Bangladesh’s Business, Economy and Finance are being shared.

Please note that the final submission of the chapter will not exceed 3000 words (if your abstract is selected).

All submissions should be made through the Submission Form at the end of this page.

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Timeline

‍31 March 2026 — Call for Contributions released‍ ‍

31 May 2026 — Abstract submission deadline

‍15 June 2026 — Abstract selection and feedback

‍31 Aug 2026 — First full draft submission

‍August - Dec 2026 — Peer review process

‍31 Dec 2026 - Feedback provided ‍

31 Jan 2027 — Revised draft submission

‍28 Feb 2027 — Editorial Review and feedback

31 March 2027 — FInal chapter submission

April - Dec 2027 — Final Production

31 Jan 2028 — Press Print Deadline

Feb 2028 - Book Launch

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Volume Editors

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·Professor Dr M. A. Baqui Khalily

‍Dean, School of Business, University of Asia Pacific, Bangladesh

Former Professor of Finance, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh

Email: bkhalily@uap-bd.edu

Professor Dr Suborna Barua

‍Visiting Research Fellow, University of Leeds, UK

‍Professor of Finance, Department of International Business, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh

‍Email: s.barua@leeds.ac.uk / sbarua@du.ac.bd

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Sifullah Khaled

A‍ssistant Professor, Sheffield Hallam University, UK

Email: s.khaled@sheffield.ac.uk

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Rubaiyat Shaimom Chowdhury

Doctoral Researcher, Universiti Malaysia Perlis, Malaysia

Assistant Professor, Bangladesh University

Email: rubaiyat.chowdhury@bu.edu.bd

For any further information or regular inquiries, please contact‍ rubaiyat.chowdhury@bu.edu.bd ‍

‍Please note: Theme Editors will be appointed depending on the emerging themes based on the abstract submissions, with an emphasis on quality, interdisciplinarity, ethical standards, and public impact. It is envisioned not simply as a publication, but as a contribution to national dialogue — one that can influence research, policy thinking, business practice, and public imagination. Information about the Theme and Commissioning Editors will be published on the Next50 portal over time.

‍‍We warmly invite contributors who are committed to producing work that is intellectually rigorous, socially relevant, and future-oriented. If you are interested in shaping the conversation about Bangladesh’s next 50 years through business, economics, and finance, we encourage you to submit your abstract and join this important collective effort.

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Who Can Submit ‍

We welcome submissions from around the world from:

• Academics

• Practitioners‍ ‍

• Policymakers‍ ‍

• Researchers ‍

• Scholars at all career stages

  We are especially looking for contributions that are:

• Bold and forward-looking

• Grounded in research and practice ‍

• Strategic rather than purely academic or purely practitioner-focused

• Fresh, thoughtful, and even out-of-the-box

  While the book engages with Bangladesh’s future, it is intended to serve as a global reference for imagining transformative pathways toward 2050.

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