It seems unlikely, unless you have a very narrow set of research interests, that you’ll be able to attend every “relevant” conference. For one thing, most research budgets won’t stretch that far, (even if you can handle sleeping in a youth hostel dormitory with twenty drunken gap year students). For another, conferences certainly take up a lot of time. With this in mind, we thought it would be useful to share details of recent events related to population and demography.

And thanks to the internet, we can go back in time and see what we missed (or have already forgotten). Most conference websites give a list of presentations, posters and plenaries. Many also include abstracts, contact details and working papers. With all this information, you can at least find out if you missed something important, (like a talk with the same title as your thesis?). And for regular conferences, having a look online is also a good way to decide whether it’s worth attending the next one.

Anyway, here’s the list (in no particular order), with some info and useful links. Please let us know if we missed anything…

IUSSP 2013: South Korea – This year was a conference year for the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP). Arguably, this is the only truly international demography conference, and it only happens every four years. You can browse sessions online by theme and participant (note that many extended abstracts and working papers are available). You can also have a look at the photos, read a short blog about it, and see an interview with one of the organisers. It would be unfair to pick out any particular session, but this year there were plenaries on:

• Population in the post-2015 Development Agenda
• Economic development, information technology, and demographic processes
• Trade-offs between economic development and environmental protection (debate)
• How families will change in the next 20 years

A small side meeting at IUSSP

ICPG 2013: Groningen – The International Conference on Population Geographies takes place every two years, and the programme will show you what you missed this time around, (although it doesn’t include the canal tour). This is a recommended conference if your research includes a strong spatial dimension, and the next conference is already confirmed for Australia in 2015.

APPC 2013: Bangkok – The Asian and Pacific Population Conference (APPC) is organised for politicians and policy makers, rather than academics. More information is available on the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) website, which is perhaps worth looking at given that this conference only takes place every ten years.

ECLAC 2013: Uruguay – The full title of this conference was the Regional Conference on Population and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (and no acronym is provided, so please improvise). Organised by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), and supported by the UNFPA, it was similar in scope to APPC 2013 (see above). For more information, see here and here.

PAA 2013: New Orleans – The annual Population Association of America conference takes place in spring, and this year saw the host was New Orleans. The website allows you to browse by topic or participant, (note that almost all presentations have either an extended abstract or a more complete working paper). The presidential address (plenary) is often published afterwards in Demography. For example, Daniel Lichter’s address in 2012, entitled: Integration or Fragmentation? Racial Diversity and the American Future, was published this year. Note that the call for papers for the 2014 conference in Boston is already open.

BSPS 2013: Swansea – This year’s British Society of Population Studies (BSPS) conference took place in Wales, and included excellent plenaries from Mary Daly (on family policy in the UK and Europe), and Monica Das Gupta (on demography, gender and kinship systems). Plenary abstracts are available, as well as a detailed programme (in pdf format). Next year’s conference will be in Winchester, and the call for papers will be issued in January 2014.

Other relevant conferences: upcoming, special interest, and previous years

• The European Population Conference (EPC) is organised by the European Association for Population Studies (EAPS) and takes place every two years. The last conference was in Stockholm, and the next EPC will be held in Budapest in 2014. Further information, including the call for papers, is available here.

• The Asian Population conference takes place every two years, and previous conferences took place in 2012 (in Bangkok), and 2010 (in India). Information on the 2014 conference will no doubt appear soon on the Asian Population Association (APA) website.

• The last African Population Conference took place in 2011, and before that in 2007. The latest information on the next conference will almost certainly be available by contacting the UAPS (Union for African Population Studies).

• Thanks to my pathetic language skills, I couldn’t read the website of the Asociación Latinoamericana de Población (ALAP), but I imagine they have conferences. Perhaps someone out there can confirm this…

• For those whose research falls under health and epidemiology, the International Epidemiological Association (IEA) are organising the next World Congress of Epidemiology in Alaska in 2014. Alternatively, after a successful conference in Denmark this year, the next European Congress of Epidemiology will be in the Netherlands in 2015.

• Aging and society is an interdisciplinary conference, which will be in Chicago in November this year and in the UK in 2014.

• There was a very recent International conference on The Demography of Disasters that was hosted by Australian National University, and it hasn’t happened yet, but the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) 2013 will be in Paris in December.

• In October, there will be an International seminar on multiple citizenship and migration in Mexico, and in November there is a conference on Crossing borders in migration and health in France.

• There are many other upcoming European events. Among them are the 1st Annual International Conference on Demography and Population Studies in Athens, the Quetelet Seminar 2013 in Belgium, and a seminar on demographic projections in Italy being held by Eurostat and the UNECE.

• There are also several European events related to families, including a conference on comparing families in December, a workshop on family formation in March 2014,  and a workshop on lone parenthood in June 2014.

• The first annual meeting of the Evolutionary Demography Society is coming up soon, although please note that they are unable to invite any more participants.

• The European Network for the Sociological and Demographic Study of Divorce is quite a specific conference, but one that is worth knowing about if you ever carry out research on union dissolution. The conference is annual, and has a committed group of organisers and attendees. It is in Oxford this year, and information on past conferences is available here.

• And last, but not least, the least academically named demography conference, Popfest, took place this year at Southampton. This is an annual postgraduate conference, which is usually hosted in the UK, but welcomes students from across the globe. Next year’s conference will be in London, and as with all the other conferences, please get in touch if you’d like to find out more information.