ReseaRch Quality assuRance foR the futuRe a ... - Lund University

Panel 7 – ECONOMICS AND MANAGEMENT (LUSEM)
2.2 Research infrastructure
A special interest is given to the building-up of a database exploiting the
excellent Swedish historical population material for a sample of parishes
over a period of three centuries in order to allow for life histories of
individuals and to connect these histories to economic and environmental
conditions.
2.3 Research
Quality. Demography is a subject, which needs insight in as different
sciences as medicine, biology, statistics, sociology, economics, economic
history and general history. Research results can consequently be published
in a wide variety of journals, and the publication tradition in some
of the areas studied by the Centre is monographs and contributions to
thematic volumes rather than articles in journals. Articles have mainly
been published in medical journals within the research topic of social
epidemiology, and among them, several in top journals. Articles and
working papers on problems in Swedish social policy and migration
topics have to a higher extent been addressed to a Swedish audience.
Among the publications with topics from historical demography, a book
with the director of the Centre as one of the co-authors was honored with
the American Sociological Association’s award for being an outstanding
book on Asia. Since there are no other institutions in the world, which
have exactly the same research profile as the CED, comparisons are difficult
to undertake. Other institutions would e.g. try to cover all aspects
of demography with theoretical issues as the main task, undertake broad
population studies, or specialize in other topics such as historical demography
or epidemiology.
Productivity. The annual report has a list of 174 publications from 2006
to 2008, covering a wide variety of subjects – although a few of them
with topics which have little connection to the research topics of the
Centre. Compared to the time used within the Centre’s framework, the
productivity is high for all the individuals, but demonstrates also the very
different publication traditions of the various disciplines, e.g. medical
articles with several authors, and economic history monographs.
Relevance. Many of the topics, which the Centre plans to study during
the grant period, are very relevant for society in general, and the fact that
the Linnaeus-grant has been given to the Centre in an open competition
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