Federal Institute for Population Research

Bundesinstitut für Bevölkerungsforschung (BiB)

Federal Institute for Population Research Bundesinstitut für Bevölkerungsforschung
Office building of the BiB in Wiesbaden
Agency overview
Formed	12 February 1973
Jurisdiction	Federal institution (nicht rechtsfähige Bundesanstalt)
Headquarters	Wiesbaden, Germany
Employees	49
Agency executive	Professor Dr. Norbert F. Schneider, Director
Parent agency	Federal Ministry of the Interior
Website	http://www.bib-demografie.de/en

The Federal Institute for Population Research (German: Bundesinstitut für Bevölkerungsforschung), abbreviated BiB, is research institute of the German federal government under the portfolio of the Federal Ministry of the Interior (German: Bundesministerium des Innern, BMI) and has the task of providing scientific advice to the federal government on issues relating to demography and demographic trends in fertility, nuptiality, mortality, ageing and migration as well as global issues.

Purpose and Tasks[]

The BiB was established on 12 February 1973 as a federal institution and belongs to the executive agencies of the Federal Ministry of the Interior. The establishment decree of the Federal Minister of the Interior of 12 February 1973 was supplemented by the decree of 28 July 1995, as well as by the new decree of 21 November 2007. It was called into being in the context of the immense fertility decline in Germany.

The three main areas of responsibility are:

• Research: The BiB operates within a wide-ranging scientific field, including international and third party funded projects, analyses statistical data and conducts large own surveys.
• Advice: As a basis for decisions of the German Government and its ministries the BiB gives advice concerning interpretations of demographic trends and analyses. Population topics are of cross-departmental importance – nationally as well as internationally –, for instance in the field of social security, health, migration, family and education.
• Information: The BiB provides information and interprets demographic topics for representatives of the portfolio, members of parliament, government officials, the educational sector, the press, companies and other groups. Furthermore, the BiB publishes articles and working papers, which are of current interest, in several own publication series. Additionally, scientific research results from external publications are made available to the public.^[1]

Administration[]

The BiB has 49 employees on staff, including 38 researchers. The interdisciplinary team of researchers in the institute consists of sociologists, economists, demographers, geographers and other social scientists. ^[2]

The BiB is divided into three research areas:

• Family and Fertility
• Migration and Mobility
• Demographic Change and Ageing^[3]

The BiB is supported in its scientific research by a Board of Trustees composed of nine researchers and nine representatives of the government departments.

Since April 1, 2009, Prof. Norbert F. Schneider is head of the BiB.

Publications[]

The programme of publications of the BiB is based on three series of publications following different scientific goals:

• Comparative Population Studies (CPoS) is a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary scientific journal on demography and population studies and appears four times a year online and on an open-access basis. Since 2010 all articles are published in English (with selected articles being translated into German as well).
• Series on Population Studies (Beiträge zur Bevölkerungswissenschaft) are monographs or compilations that deal with demographic issues. The volumes appear one to three times per year.
• Population Research Bulletin (Bevölkerungsforschung Aktuell) is a newsletter that appears every second month and informs about research results from the BiB and makes aware of population-science events and new reference material.

The Materials on Population Studies (Materialien zur Bevölkerungswissenschaft) were suspended after publishing Volume 129 and replaced by the series BiB Working Paper which include research-related papers and BiB Data and Technical Reports (Daten- und Methodenberichte) which publish descriptions of data sets and methods.

Furthermore, the BiB publishes brochures at irregular intervals.^[4]

Cooperation[]

The BiB has worked in several international research projects, including GGP, PPAS/DIALOG, FEMAGE, FFS and JobMob.

The BiB is cooperating with the (EAPS) and has organised the European Population Conference (EPC), which is the largest European conference on population studies, in 2016. It is also a member of the Population Europe network.

External links[]

• BiB-Homepage^{[permanent dead link]}
• Comparative Population Studies (CPoS) – Peer-reviewed open access journal of the BiB

References[]