Chantal Cases

A part of INED studies planned for 2015 will focus on youth—this is surely one of the main innovations of recent years. The Institute will of course continue working on population ageing and end-of-life, but we will also be developing more projects on childhood, adolescence and entry into adulthood. Our researchers will be studying socialization and educational trajectories, also homeless young people, among other things.

The children followed since birth by the ELFE study (Etude Longitudinale Française depuis l’Enfance) will be turning age 4 this year. The ELFE maternity clinic surveys are yielding initial findings, and a new stage in the study began last fall when parents were interviewed at home for the first time. Meanwhile, the first phase of the ELAP project, a longitudinal study of young people placed in child and youth welfare programs, has been successfully completed.

Detailed analyses of material from the T&O (Trajectories and Origins) and ERFI (Family and intergenerational relations) surveys, two of the most important studies in recent years, will also be coming out this year. T&O measures discrimination and analyses the trajectories of immigrants and their descendants in France; INED will be soon publishing the new findings in its “Grandes Enquêtes” series. Family is at the heart of ERFI, a longitudinal life-course survey informing us on such things as fertility intention realization, couples’ situations and relations among the generations in France.

Further fueling our research are a number of new major surveys such as VIRAGE (on violence and gender relations), aimed at increasing our knowledge of violence against both sexes. VIRAGE data collection will get underway early this year. We are also continuing to process data from recent surveys such as the EPIC (Study of individual and couple trajectories) and Families and housing surveys.

Lastly, INED is closely attentive to developments throughout the world, notably in Southern countries with our on-going research projects on sub-Saharan Africa and eastern Europe.

We have been developing a new relational dynamic with our university colleagues in the interest of bolstering training and research in demography. Much of this is occurring in connection with the iPOPs Laboratory of Excellence or Labex, in which INED is a leading actor. This summer (July 2-3), INED is organizing an international conference on inequalities in the iPOPs framework.

 We continue to be deeply involved in preparing for the opening of the Campus Condorcet. Construction of this future fundamental humanities and social science centre began last year on the northern outskirts of Paris. As soon as it is completed, INED—one of the ten founding institutions—will settle into our new home on the Aubervilliers site. We hope soon to be concluding the competitive dialogue to decide which company will construct our headquarters. We are also active on the taskforces working to organize the new Campus library.

Meanwhile, the work of setting up the new ComUEs (University and institutional communities or clusters) continues. INED joined the University Sorbonne-Paris-Cité (USPC) ComUE in 2014, and this spring I will propose to our administrative board that we adopt the newly configured héSam ComUE statutes.

In 2014 we redesigned INED’s website; the new site is more contemporary and aims to suit to the needs of both the general public and the scientific community. And the Institute’s emblematic journal, “Population,” now has its own website. In 2015 we will be offering new material for the general public, such as Rencontres de la Démo (Encounters with demography), a new mini-lecture series launched last year, and organizing events for schoolchildren, etc.

Most importantly, INED is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year. The Institute was founded in 1945, immediately after World War II. The anniversary offers an opportunity to explore INED’s history; also to reflect on the Institute’s role in today’s world, its place in public debate, what it can offer to actors outside the scientific community. I can already let you in on the plan for a scientific—and festive—study day on September 22 at the “104,” an emblematic cultural centre of eastern Paris.