Jean-Marc Rohrbasser

According to the 1986 statutes, INED "is in charge of informing the public on demographic questions" and "diffusing demographic research at an international scale." Book publishing is therefore one of the Institute’s public service missions, and has been since it was created in 1945. Information is to be diffused to researchers, students and "l’honnête homme." INED provides editorial support to demography research, of course, but also more broadly to the social sciences, a vulnerable sector today.

Any author, either from INED or outside, can submit a book project comprising an abstract, table of contents and a few lines explaining the book’s contribution to demographic research. Projects are peer-reviewed by the INED Collections editorial committee. After a project is approved, the author must send in a manuscript, which is then reviewed anonymously by at least two readers, a member of INED’s editorial committee and an outside researcher. The committee has the final word. The work is then sent to the publications office, which whom I work closely until it comes out. The office is in charge of copyediting, page setting, printing and sales. INED publications are also sold on the Institute’s website; bookstore distribution is handled by the Presses Universitaires de France.

INED publications cover a wide range of population-related themes. There are four main areas: demography techniques, social issues, survey results, and history of demographic knowledge. The works are published in a variety of collections: the Cahiers de l’INED [INED Notebooks] (formerly "Travaux et documents"), Manuels [Handbooks], Classiques de l’Economie et de la Population, and Etudes et enquêtes historiques [Historical studies and surveys]. In 2009 we published the first volume of a new collection called "Les Grandes enquêtes" [Major surveys]; the collection will diffuse the results and methodologies of social sciences surveys done by INED and other research organisations. We also publish a set of books called "Les Textes fondamentaux" that make the founding texts of the discipline available to French-speaking readers.
And we occasionally co-publish books with the main social sciences and humanities publishers. Co-publishing increases the visibility of the social sciences in general and demography in particular.