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Themes
Overview
The IUSSP’s main activity is the organization of scientific seminars, workshops and conferences. These meetings serve to push population research in new directions and disseminate research results on population issues. They also foster international networks of population and health researchers working on similar issues. Meetings are organised largely by expert scientific panels set up to address specific population issues.
The outcomes of IUSSP meetings are disseminated through a wide range of publications: the IUSSP website, policy papers, edited volumes and articles in leading peer-reviewed journals. The results of its work are also communicated to international governing and policy-making institutions with which IUSSP has special consultative status, such as the Economic and Social Council of the UN, UNESCO, ILO, and UNAIDS.
Capacity-strengthening and training activities are integrated with the scientific programme: junior demographers are encouraged to participate in IUSSP activities through the Junior Demographer Awards programme; training workshops are sometimes set up as part of IUSSP seminars; every two years, an IUSSP Summer School is organized; in addition, new plans for 2007-2009 include web-based mentoring of young researchers.
IUSSP Scientific Panels
The scientific programme of the Union is carried out mainly by its Scientific Panels, which are each responsible for a programme of work in a specific field. These panels are established by the IUSSP Council to address a scientific issue and to organize two or three meetings to consider research knowledge, data and trends, and policy implications on the topic. They consist of a small group of high level experts with an adequate regional distribution and gender balance.
For the 2007-2009 period, 22 IUSSP Scientific Panels have been established to address topics of major scientific and policy relevance
Population and Development • Adolescent
Life Course in Developing Countries |
Population, Health and Ageing • Abortion |
Population Information for Planning and Policy• Business
Demography |
Population and Mobility• Integration
of Migrants |
Population Challenges in Post-Transitional Societies •
Policies in the Context of Low Fertility |
Cross-cutting issues • Demography
of Armed Conflict |
Seminars, cyberseminars and workshops
Most IUSSP Scientific Panels carry out their programme by organizing seminars and workshops on specific topics, with the aim of providing scientific, state-of-the-art answers to critical population questions. Researchers from different disciplines and from all regions are invited to present papers that address the topic from multiple perspectives. Participants may be invited on the basis of their expertise on a specific topic, but most participants are selected competitively through a call for papers disseminated to IUSSP members and others working in the topic area. Twenty to thirty participants are invited to attend the meeting, present their findings, and participate in the discussion of the papers, both from a scientific perspective and in terms of policy implications.
Most seminars also provide an opportunity for junior researchers and local policy-makers to attend as observers and occasionally participate in a training component. The three-four day duration of these seminars and the limited number of participants encourage intensive discussion on the research topic. These contacts continue long after the seminars have ended and often lead to long-term research collaboration between researchers from different countries and regions, reinforcing international research networks.
Some panels, such as the Population-Environment Research Network operate almost exclusively through the Internet, by organizing cyberseminars in which an average of 450 members participate, from all over the world.
Outputs
For each seminar and workshop, a report is written and made available
to the general public on the webpage of the panel. Papers discussed at
the seminar are available shortly after the meeting on the same webpage,
but access is restricted to IUSSP members. The best papers are usually
published in a special issue of a peer-reviewed journal or in a volume
of the IUSSP collection International Studies in Population published
by Springer. In addition, the IUSSP strongly encourages the preparation
of an IUSSP Policy Brief for each of its seminars or workshops, with a
view to highlight policy relevant outcomes and disseminate these to a
broader, non-technical audience.
Reports, papers and Policy Briefs can be accessed on the webpages of each
Scientific Panel or at the following links:
• Papers
• Reports
• Policy Briefs.
Past and future activities organized by the IUSSP are listed on the calendar of scientific activities, which is regularly updated.
International and Regional Population Conferences
In addition to the activities organized by its panels, the IUSSP organizes
its International Population Conference every four years. The most recent
one, held in Tours, France in July 2005 attracted over 2000 participants.
The next Conference will be organized in Marrakech, Morocco in September
2009.
The IUSSP also collaborates in the organization of regional or thematic
conferences or in conferences organized by regional population associations.