Chantal Cases

Chantal Cases, an economist and statistician, graduate of France’s Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l’Administration Economique (ENSAE), has been director of INED (the French National Institute for Demographic Studies) since October 2009. Here she takes stock of the current Goals Contract, which comes to an end this year, and summarizes reviews of Institute activity and organization by national research evaluation agencies.

(Interview conducted in August 2015)

Detailed, ongoing and renewed research was conducted in all the major demography topic areas over the period, producing original surveys and substantial data and analyses. This material constitutes genuine infrastructures, shared with the SHS (human and social sciences) community of researchers. The major topic areas are health and mortality (the FECOND survey on sexual and reproductive health, reconstitution and analyses of causes of death), family configurations, intergenerational relations and ageing (the families and housing survey, the Generations and Gender Programme, a survey on individual and conjugal trajectories, a longitudinal study of children in foster care, the end-of-life survey), and migrations and their effects (the MAFE study of migrations between Africa and Europe, the Trajectories and Origins survey). INED’s survey department was very active in developing the quantitative component of the DIME-SHS Equipex [equipment of excellence], sponsored by Sciences Po. Work on constructing the ELFE [French longitudinal study of children] cohort is continuing—we now have 97 associated teams working in 16 different topic areas and on 80 different projects—and is starting to produce results.

Solid scientific works were published in the area of long demographic history. Gender studies were further developed at INED, and the survey on violence and gender relations, a contract priority, got underway in 2015. Economic demography has been developed by way of the iPOPs labex [laboratory of excellence], sponsored by INED, and our involvement in OSE [Opening up economics], sponsored by the Paris School of Economics. In this connection a mixed INED-University of Paris I chair was created. The impact of family and social policy on demographic behaviour was studied extensively over the period, often from a comparative perspective thanks to European funding.

Yes, INED researchers worked jointly with European and North American partners a great deal; also in the South, in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, where they continued to develop indispensable data sources (population observatories in Africa, studies on the effects of sex ratio at birth imbalances in China, and others). North African studies too have developed. And an indispensable base of data and research on demographic behaviour in France’s overseas départements was developed thanks to MFV (migration, family and ageing) survey data collection and analysis, a project involving collaboration with INSEE and local actors.

The external reviews done during the period were highly favourable, and the recommendations made will be very useful in preparing for the future.

The AERES (Evaluation Agency for Research and Higher Education) committee that evaluated INED research teams reached the overall conclusion that “INED is a research centre of excellence in research policy, funding infrastructures and performance.” “The academic standing of the Institute and many of its researchers in France and abroad is unquestionable,” and the Institute was given high marks for “making substantial amounts of information and knowledge available to society at large” and for its doctoral training program and ongoing policy of hosting foreign researchers.

The definitive evaluation by the HCERES [council for the evaluation of research and higher education] is also highly favourable: “the distance covered since the preceding 2010 review is impressive.” Our involvement in partnerships in France (COMUEs or associations of universities and higher education institutions, the Campus Condorcet project), our success in obtaining national and international research grants and completing major surveys are among the strong points noted by the committee.

Thanks to iPOPs, INED has extended its program for hosting teacher-researchers, thereby helping to generate the production of new knowledge. In 2010 we were hosting 25 doctoral students; we now host 40. The arrangements for funding doctoral research contracts have been strengthened; a charter for PhD students working at INED has been established and an international selection committee set up.

This year the ANR (national research agency) reviewed the laboratories of excellence selected in 2011 in the framework of the “investment in the future” grant scheme to see how they have been progressing. The report on iPOPs is very good: the labex has increased the visibility of demography and “the iPOPs network is attracting a new generation of researchers;” it is also “providing senior researchers with more time to conduct new research and publish in better journals.”