Vienna Institute of Demography

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Office building Welthandelsplatz 2
The entrance to the institute

Coordinates: 48 ° 12 ′ 53.4 "  N , 16 ° 24 ′ 21"  E

The Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) is a research institution of the philosophical-historical class of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) and one of the three " pillar institutions " of the Wittgenstein Center for Demography and Global Human Capital . In 2015 the institute moved from its former location in Vienna's 4th district to the new campus of the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU) on the edge of the Prater .

history

On the initiative of several scientists who wanted to set up a research facility for population science in Austria, including Wilhelm Winkler and Gustav Feichtinger, the Institute for Demography (IfD) was established in November 1975 as a non-university research institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in close cooperation with the Austrian Central Statistical Office (today's Statistics Austria ) was founded. Its first director was Lothar Bosse , who led the IfD for twelve years. In the early years, research activities were limited for budget reasons, but they were already focused on theory and basic research as well as applied demography . Right from the start, emphasis was placed on informing the public about demographic topics and research results, for example through the publication of “ Demographic Information ” (1981–2003, with English abstracts ).

Bosses successor was Richard Gisser , who headed the institute from 1987–1989 and again from 1993–2001 (in between the social scientist Rainer Münz took over) and remained at the house as deputy institute director and head of the VID research group on Demography of Austria . From 1985 the research topics of population development got more and more attention, especially since the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) was founded in Rostock in Germany.

After a positive external evaluation and the allocation of special funds, the Academy decided in 2001 to considerably enlarge the institute and also to internationalize it. Under the designated new director Wolfgang Lutz , the name of the institution and the working language were changed, additional research and administrative staff were hired, the research areas expanded, the publication activity increased (increasingly in the peer-review process ), and the company moved to new and increasingly larger offices in Vienna's 4th district (2002–2007 in Prinz-Eugen-Strasse 8–10, then 2007–2015 in Wohllebengasse 12–14).

Research activities at the VID continued to grow and attracted increased attention from both political decision-makers and the scientific community, which is evident from the fact that scientists at the VID (the majority of the employees are women) are now regularly participating in or in large international research projects coordinate, for example in the research framework programs of the European Union, and get confirmation in the form of considerable funding from state and supranational research funds such as the European Research Council (ERC). VID Director Wolfgang Lutz received the Wittgenstein Prize, endowed with 1.5 million euros, in 2010 and founded the Wittgenstein Center for Demography and Global Human Capital .

On the 40th anniversary of its founding, the VID moved to its current location on the new WU campus (building D5) in the 2nd district and celebrated this and other anniversaries with a symposium on “Demography that Matters”.

Wolfgang Lutz is still the director of the VID, but at the beginning of 2016 he was succeeded as managing director in Alexia Fürnkranz-Prskawetz . She is Professor of Mathematical Economics at the Institute for Business Mathematics at the Vienna University of Technology and has been the head of the VID research group for Population Economics for many years . Richard Gisser remains deputy director.

Research areas

The VID currently employs approx. 40 research staff, most with a background in economics , mathematics / statistics , geography or human geography , health sciences or sociology , to cover key research topics in demography - fertility , mortality and migration and a number of sub-areas. Over the course of 40 years, the research interest has expanded from the core competence for Austrian and later European demographics to a global perspective on important issues relating to the development of population and human capital.

The VID is currently working on seven main research areas, which are assigned to different research groups, although there is permeability and cooperation here:

  • Demography of Austria (led by Richard Gisser and Isabella Buber-Ennser)
  • Comparative European Demography (Tomáš Sobotka)
  • Population Dynamics and Forecasting (Sergei Scherbov)
  • Population Economics (Michael Kuhn and Gustav Feichtinger)
  • Health and Longevity ( Marc Luy )
  • Migration and Education (Jesús Crespo Cuaresma)
  • Human Capital Data Lab (Anne Goujon)

Publications

In addition to the individual contributions of individual institute members for a number of specialist journals, the VID issues the following regular publications:

  • Vienna Yearbook of Population Research (VYPR) - since 2003, the "Yearbook" has been publishing peer- reviewed research articles in English on demographic trends and theoretical or methodological questions in population science, usually in the form of a conference proceedings from the previous year's VID / Wittgenstein Conference, which is always dedicated to a specific topic of demography. In addition, the VYPR Demographic Debates contains requested articles on topics of current scientific interest in the subject, and finally there are articles on Data & Trends , in which developments and trends in aspects of population change in Austria and Europe are depicted
  • First-hand demographic research - a German-language newsletter (in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research ) to provide information to journalists and political decision-makers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, appears around four times a year
  • VID Working Papers - occasional articles in English, mostly by members of the VID
  • Research reports - occasional articles, mostly in German and also mostly by members of the VID
  • European Demographic Data Sheet - every two years the VID presents the key figures and data on a topic of demography (such as aging, migration, fertility) on a poster in DIN A1 format with maps and images

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerhart Bruckmann : Obituary for Lothar Bosse. In: Almanach der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 1996/97 (147th year), pp. 615–619. Vienna, 1998. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. ISBN 978-3-7001-2730-7
  2. ^ OeAW Events, September 9, 2015
  3. ↑ Details on the history of the IfD / VID are taken from the anniversary brochure 40 years of the Vienna Institute of Demography 1975–2015 , Vienna, 2015, Wittgenstein Center, VID, ÖAW
  4. ↑ JSTOR entry for VYPR
  5. ↑ First-hand demographic research. Retrieved January 24, 2018 .
  6. ↑ European Demographic Data Sheet 2016 - News 2016 - IIASA. Retrieved January 24, 2018 .