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262px, University building Welthandelsplatz 2 262px, Entrance to VID The Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) (until 2002: Institut für Demographie/IfD) is a research institute of the division for humanities and social sciences within the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) and part of the three "''pillar institutions''" of the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital.


History

After some groundwork by researchers interested in having a population studies institute in Austria, among them Wilhelm Winkler and Gustav Feichtinger, the ''Institut für Demographie'' was established in November 1975 as a non-university research institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in close cooperation with the Austrian Statistical Central Office (now
Statistik Austria Statistics Austria, known locally as Statistik Austria, is the official name of Austria's Federal Statistical Office (german: Bundesanstalt Statistik Österreich), the country's agency for collecting and publishing official statistics related to Aus ...
). Founding director was Lothar Bosse (1914–1996), a German-born philosopher, mathematician and economist who remained at the head of IfD for twelve years. In the first few years, research activities were limited by budget restrictions and focussed on ''theory and basic research'' as well as ''applied demography''. From the beginning, there was an emphasis on informing the public about population issues and research results, by publications such as "''Demographische Informationen''" (since 1981, in German with English abstracts). Bosse was succeeded by Richard Gisser who headed the institute 1987–1989 and again 1993–2001 (interim directorship was taken by social scientist Rainer Münz) and continues to be the institute’s deputy director and a leader of the research group on ''Demography of Austria''. In the period of 1985 to 2000, the institute and the research topic of demography received increasing attention, though there was some competition for scientific staff with the newly founded Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany. After positive independent evaluations and the commitment of special funds, the ÖAW decided to substantially expand and internationalise the institute in 2001. Under the designated new director
Wolfgang Lutz Wolfgang Lutz (born 10 December 1956) is an Austrian demographer specializing in demographic analysis and population projection. He founded the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital in 2010 – a collaboration between IIAS ...
, the IfD changed its name and working language, employed more scientific and administrative staff, expanded its research agenda as well as its publication efforts and moved to new and successively larger premises in the 4th district (2002–2007 at Prinz-Eugen-Strasse 8-10, then 2007–2015 at Wohllebengasse 12-14). Research activity at VID continued to expand and received favourable attention by policy-makers and scientific peers, which showed in VID members participating in or coordinating major research projects, for instance within the European Union’s
Framework Programmes A framework is a generic term commonly referring to an essential supporting structure which other things are built on top of. Framework may refer to: Computing * Application framework, used to implement the structure of an application for an op ...
, and obtaining recognition by being awarded sizeable grants from the
European Research Council The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientific ...
(ERC). Director Wolfgang Lutz received the
Wittgenstein Award The Wittgenstein Award (german: Wittgenstein-Preis) is an Austrian science award supporting the notion that "scientists should be guaranteed the greatest possible freedom and flexibility in the performance of their research." The prize money of up ...
in 2010 and, with the 1.5 million euro prize money, established the ''Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital''. At its 40th anniversary in 2015, VID moved to the WU campus in Vienna’s 2nd district, celebrating this and other occasions with a symposium on "Demography that Matters". In 2016 Alexia Fürnkranz-Prskawetz, head of the Institute of Mathematical Methods in Economics at the
Vienna University of Technology TU Wien (TUW; german: Technische Universität Wien; still known in English as the Vienna University of Technology from 1975–2014) is one of the major universities in Vienna, Austria. The university finds high international and domestic recogn ...
and long-time leader of the VID research group on ''Population Economics'' became executive director.Details on the VID history taken from the anniversary brochure ''40 years of the Vienna Institute of Demography 1975–2015'', Vienna, 2015, Wittgenstein Centre, VID, ÖAW
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Research activities

VID employs about 40 researchers, most of them from the fields of
economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics anal ...
,
mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
/
statistics Statistics (from German: '' Statistik'', "description of a state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a scientific, indust ...
,
geography Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, an ...
, health studies and
sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...
, to cover the major research topics of
demography Demography () is the statistical study of populations, especially human beings. Demographic analysis examines and measures the dimensions and dynamics of populations; it can cover whole societies or groups defined by criteria such as ed ...
or population science:
fertility Fertility is the capability to produce offspring through reproduction following the onset of sexual maturity. The fertility rate is the average number of children born by a female during her lifetime and is quantified demographically. Ferti ...
, mortality and
migration Migration, migratory, or migrate may refer to: Human migration * Human migration, physical movement by humans from one region to another ** International migration, when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum le ...
as well as a number of other fields of interest. Over time, the institute’s research focus has expanded from its core competences in Austrian and later European demography to a global perspective on the relevant issues of population and human capital development. There are seven main areas of research, assigned to different research groups though there is considerable permeability and cooperation: * Demography of Austria (led by Richard Gisser and Isabella Buber-Ennser) * Comparative European Demography (Tomáš Sobotka) * Population Dynamics and Forecasting (
Sergei Scherbov Sergei Scherbov (born 1952) is a demographer specializing in demographic analysis and population projection. He is Deputy Program Leader with the World Population Program (POP) at IIASA (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis) sin ...
) * 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 VID researchers to a number of scientific journals, the institute issues the following regular publications: * ''Vienna Yearbook of Population Research'' (VYPR)—since 2003, the "Yearbook" features peer-reviewed research articles (in English) addressing population trends as well as a broad range of theoretical and methodological issues in population research, usually taking the form of the
proceedings In academia and librarianship, conference proceedings is a collection of academic papers published in the context of an academic conference or workshop. Conference proceedings typically contain the contributions made by researchers at the confer ...
of last year’s VID/Wittgenstein conference, which is always dedicated to a particular demographic topic. Besides that, the VYPR also publishes Demographic Debates with invited contributions on topics related to the ongoing scientific arguments in the field. Finally, contributions on Data & Trends map long-term developments as well as recent trends in various components of population change in Austria and in Europe. * ''Demografische Forschung aus erster Hand''—a newsletter in German language (in cooperation with the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research), for information of journalists and policymakers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, approx. four times a year * ''VID Working Papers''—occasional articles in English, mostly by VID researchers * ''Forschungsberichte'' (Research Reports)—occasional articles, mostly in German and also usually by VID researchers * ''European Demographic Data Sheet''—every other year, VID presents the relevant data on a selected topic (such as ageing, migration, fertility etc.) on an A1-size poster with maps and figures


References


External links


Website of VID

Online access to all volumes of the Vienna Yearbook of Population Research

Website of Demografische Forschung aus erster Hand

European Demographic Data Sheets, from 2006 onward
{{authority control 1975 establishments in Austria Actuarial science Austrian Academy of Sciences Demographics Education in Vienna Environmental social science Human geography Organisations based in Vienna Organizations established in 1975 Research institutes in Austria