Presidential Letter 2024
December 2024
Dear Colleagues,
Demography thrives when we come together for scientific exchange and to make our institutions and associations better. On November 27th, we gathered for three outstanding talks by award-winning scholars (Aart Liefbroer, Iñaki Permanyer, and Eleonora Mussino), and for the EAPS General Assembly. As president of EAPS, I had the privilege and the pleasure of representing the EAPS council and providing some updates on the state of our association.
The summary of the summary is that EAPS is flourishing and that the council is working hard to make the future of our association even brighter. Let me elaborate a bit on all that.
The EAPS council has five key priorities. First of all, EAPS aims at fostering scientific exchange. This is accomplished mainly by organizing the European Population Conference (EPC), and by supporting working groups and networks. The next EPC is scheduled to take place from June 3-6 2026 in beautiful Bologna. The council and the local organizing committee have been in close communication, and we plan to have a site visit next spring to make early arrangements for the EPC venue. We are grateful to all of you who filled out the post-EPC 2024 survey. The comments were overwhelmingly positive, but there were also constructive suggestions on things to consider to further optimize the conference experience. We will do what we can, within the constraints in which we operate, and we hope to see you all at EPC 2026!
In between EPCs, a lot of productive exchange happens via working groups, which also contribute to a second main priority of our association: favoring training. To further highlight the work of the groups and to strengthen the connection with EAPS, we just matched each group with a member of the EAPS council. These members serve as council liaisons for the group, and create a further bridge between the groups and EAPS and its members. Feel free to reach out if you want to be involved in current groups, or if you have ideas for additional groups that would complement well the existing ones. As an example, the council recently received a proposal for an EAPS Open Science Network. We value open science and reproducibility, and believe that strengthening this area is something timely and important for the field of demography. Therefore we welcomed the proposal. The details of the activities and the scope of this network are still under discussion, but if you are interested in the topic and would like to contribute, please feel free to get in touch with the key people who are leading this initiative (Ugofilippo Basellini, Arianna Caporali, Olga Grünwald and Tim Riffe). Open Science practices are also being increasingly discussed in the European Doctoral School of Demography (EDSD), an 11-month training program that is a cooperation of a number of research institutes across Europe, under the aegis of EAPS. The current cohort of EDSD students is now based at INED in Paris, after spending two months at MPIDR, and are busy learning and developing ideas that will shape the future of demography.
Third, EAPS promotes research dissemination. The European Journal of Population, whose editor in chief is EAPS council member Trude Lappegård, and the European Studies of Population book series, published under the aegis of EAPS, play a central role in scientific dissemination, and complement other initiatives aimed at outreach to policy makers, done in partnership with Population Europe.
A fourth priority of EAPS is to recognize excellence in our community. One way to do so is via a set of awards that are given biennially at EPC. Within the council, we are discussing ways to make sure that the awards are inclusive and representative of all major areas of research within demography and population studies. We are also discussing ways to make sure that different levels of seniority are taken into account for different types of awards. You may expect some small tweaks to the rules for some awards, or potentially a small expansion of the number or scope of some of the awards. Regardless of details, please start thinking of people that you would like to nominate and who deserve recognition from EAPS. Importantly, don’t just think about them. When the time comes, nominate them as well.
Fifth, we aim at guaranteeing financial sustainability. EPC 2024 was self-sustaining and a great success with record numbers in terms of submissions (1,293), reflecting also a more than 40% increase in EAPS membership compared to the previous record year. This comes also with an increase in the number of members that come from typically under-represented countries, a trend that we welcome. EAPS is entering 2025 in solid financial health, also thanks to the generous and continued support from NIDI, that hosts the EAPS Secretariat.
As part of the General Assembly, we appointed auditors for 2024-2026 (Frank Heins and Miguel Sanchez-Romero), and nominating a new committee (Hill Kulu, Francesco Billari, Jane Falkingham, Giulia Ferrari and Helga de Valk) that will propose a slate of candidates for the next EAPS council.
The slides of the General Assembly are available here. Should you have thoughts, ideas, comments, suggestions or feedback for the EAPS council, please feel free to reach out to us anytime.
With best wishes,
Emilio Zagheni,
EAPS President
September 2024
Dear EAPS Members, dear Colleagues, dear Friends of Demography,
Exactly three months ago most of us were together for the largest scientific gathering about demography in Europe. EPC 2024 in Edinburgh was a great success. Personally, I enjoyed the quality, breadth and depth of the sessions, I benefited from the many opportunities for scientific exchange, and I cherish the memories of the time together with not only brilliant minds, but also wonderful colleagues and friends. And this is not to mention the Scottish bagpipes… As summer is drawing down, I invite you to take a look at some pictures of the EPC 2024 opening ceremony and the closing session. Please also join me in thanking Hill Kulu, Elspeth Graham, their teams, and everyone who contributed behind the scenes, for the excellent work, dedication and love that they put into organizing the conference.
Shortly after EPC 2024, the new EAPS Council met online, and we will continue to hold monthly online meetings to coordinate the activities of the association. After a summer break in August, we are ready to roll up our sleeves and get back to work. But, first of all, we would like to express our gratitude for the trust that you have placed in us. It is an honor for us to serve EAPS and our community, and we will do our best to build upon the excellent work of previous councils and to further advance demographic research and training.
In order to foster scientific exchange beyond the European Population Conference, EAPS supports, among others, a number of Working Groups. We will keep you posted on their upcoming activities with this newsletter. In the meanwhile, I encourage you to check the scope of the working groups, and their past activities, on the working groups webpage. If you are interested in contributing to working group activities, please get in touch with members of the respective group’s steering committee. If you are interested in organizing new working groups that complement existing ones, please take a look at the call for new working groups.
A couple of weeks ago, a new cohort of 15 students of the European Doctoral School of Demography (EDSD) started their classes. EDSD is an eleven-month program sponsored by a consortium of leading demographic institutions in Europe, under the aegis of EAPS. The program is offered every year with the aim of providing students with an appropriate high-level education in demography to pursue their doctoral studies. We wish the EDSD students a successful and enriching year!
Over the next months, major conferences organized by regional associations will take place, including the Latin American Population Conference and the Asian Population Conference, in addition to many national conferences in Europe and beyond, culminating in the IUSSP International Population Conference next July. If you have the chance to attend one or more of the upcoming population conferences and events, please do not miss the opportunity to tell our friends, both in Europe and all over the world, that everyone is welcome to join us in beautiful Bologna for EPC 2026!
Best wishes,
Emilio Zagheni,
EAPS President