 N-IUSSP: the newborn has turned a month old
N-IUSSP, IUSSP’s online news magazine, has just celebrated its first ... “monthlyversary”. In its first month of activity, it has published six articles, two of which are in English, two in French and two, in both languages. These “special” articles include IUSSP President Anastasia Gage’s welcome address and an article by Valeria Solesin, originally posted on the Neodemos website in Italian, in October 2013. Two years later, in November 2015, she died tragically – killed by fanatics, along with many others, in the barbaric slaughter at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris. Valeria Solesin was a PhD student in demography at the Sorbonne University and at the French Institute for Population Studies (INED), where the IUSSP has its headquarters. N-IUSSP decided to honour her memory by re-publishing her encouragement “Allez, les filles: au travail!” – which, incidentally, she applied first to herself. You may wish to know how N-IUSSP works. When an article is received it is first read by the Editor in chief, who checks if it meets the required standards: it must be either in English or in French; it must be in the range of some 1,000 words (but we are flexible in that respect); it should preferably have some accompanying tables or graphs (or both); and, most importantly, it must be the kind of article that you would want to read in a magazine like, say, “The Economist”. Which means that it should be addressed to the general public (and therefore not exclusively to demographers); it should arouse the readers’ interest on some specific, ideally “hot” and recent topic; and it should provide some new element, be it in terms of data, insights, possible connections, policy implications, and the like. If these conditions are met, the article is then passed on to one of the members of the Editorial Committee, on a rotating basis, and, if approved (possibly with some adjustment), it is passed on to our copy editor, for language polishing. A long process, which inevitably takes a toll (on the editor in chief’s time in the first place, and also on a few of the proposed articles, which are eventually rejected), but which, we hope, results in a product that is up to your expectations. There are also a few extras, of course: a population clock, videos and graphs (with comments) that are renewed monthly, links to other demographic websites that are more or less of the same nature... We are proud of what we have achieved thus far (and with very limited staff!), but, of course, we know that more could be done, and we are open to your suggestions and inputs. More importantly, we would like every IUSSP member to feel that N-IUSSP belongs to you. If you do not feel like reading it every week, when a new article appears; if you cannot use it in class; if you are not naturally led to mention it in a discussion with friends and colleagues; and if you do not feel the urge to submit an article yourself, then we must be making some mistakes. If so, which ones? Just let us know. Editor in Chief: Gustavo De Santis Editorial Committee of N-IUSSP: Alaka Basu, Ernestina Coast, Monica Das Gupta, John Knodel, Bruno Masquelier, Cheikh Mbacké, Peter McDonald, Paula Miranda-Ribeiro, Gilles Pison, Jacques Vallin, Wang Feng. Editorial Committee of Neodemos (also working for N-IUSSP): Francesco Billari, Corrado Bonifazi, Andrea Brandolini, Cinzia Conti, Roberto Impicciatore, Massimo Livi Bacci, Letizia Mencarini, Stefano Molina, Alessandro Rosina, Maria Letizia Tanturri. Technical staff: Caterina Livi Bacci (Editing - graphics - web design) Filippo Bonechi & Francesco Cipriani (Web developer - database project) Catriona Dutreuilh (copy editor) Articles published in November 2015 • A. Gage: Welcome to N-IUSSP • Ø. Kravdal, E. Grundy: On the importance of register data (and on the underuse of medication among the unmarried) • J. Vallin: Faut-il une politique de population? • K.A.P. Siddhisena: The population of Sri Lanka in transition: policy stance • V. Solesin: Allez les filles, au travail! • J. Vallin: Les politiques démographiques sont-elles efficaces? Articles ready to be published Wait and see! (there are currently eight, but there could be more: it depends on you!)
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