International Union for the Scientific Study of Population

The International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) promotes the scientific study of population, encourages exchange between researchers around the globe, and stimulates interest in population issues. The IUSSP aims to expand virtual activities to reach a broader audience of population experts and policymakers, increasingly engage early career researchers in IUSSP activities, and build its training activities in novel data use methodologies. (Strategy: Global Reproductive Equity)

With Hewlett Foundation support, the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population has completed two years of an initiative to train local scientists to analyze and evaluate development issues with cutting-edge demographic tools. The project has already trained sixty scientists from seventeen African countries, and seeks to broaden the impact of this work to a wider range of skills at still more Francophone institutions. The recommended renewal proposes a second phase in which the organization would continue its training work, but with an added focus on publishing policy-inspired research emphasizing the intersections between global development and population and the 2010 round of African censuses. The next phase also seeks to build capacity at Africa’s universities to manage modern data sets, which would give population scientists in the region the means to continue their research.

The International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) is a professional association of population scientists with over 2,200 members from 140 countries. IUSSP fosters international interdisciplinary networks of social scientists and policymakers to conduct research and debate critical population issues. The recommended grant supports the IUSSP’s core scientific activities, which includes programs to provide demographic training opportunities for developing country scientists. IUSSP recently pioneered open educational resources for demographic training via the internet. IUSSP also coordinates the Foundation’s demographic training initiative in Francophone West Africa.