For the last 10 years, there has been an intense debate on the effects of climate change and on societal adaptation in social sciences extending disciplinary boundaries as well as diverse dimensions of social life, economic systems, and governance. At the beginning of the 2020s, the majority of climate change adaptation research is financed by public authorities embedding an explicitly output-driven application focus in project design. Such projects typically aim at developing concrete, mostly technology-driven solutions and best practices for selected regions or sectors. As a result of such scientific pragmatism, corresponding theorizations of the socially and politically contextualized design and implementation of adaptation research as well as its societal effects are either underrepresented or entirely non-existent. After more than 10 years of social science research on climate change adaptation, it is necessary to identify and update key research opportunities for the social sciences, in addition to questions arising from structural uncertainties and knowledge gaps with regard to the manifestations of climate change. Not least due to dynamic activity in the area of (urban) planning and implementing climate change adaptation, this theme issue explores opportunities of future socio-theoretical research in this field and its relevance.