History & Philosophy

The Minnesota Population Center (MPC) was established in March 2000. Despite our institutional youth, we did not start from scratch; researchers at the University had been collaborating on population research for decades. After several years of discussion, a group of five population researchers decided in 1999 to propose a new university-wide research unit to share resources. These founding collaborators were John Adams, Chair of the Department of Geography; Dennis Ahlburg of the Industrial Relations Center in the Carlson School of Management; Lynn Blewett of the School of Public Health; Deborah Levison of the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs; and Steven Ruggles of the History Department. We proposed a new center to the Vice President for Research of the University, who created a freestanding University-wide unit in March 2000 and awarded us a grant of $100,000 for start-up expenses. In recognition of the importance of the new Center, the College of Liberal Arts contributed significant additional funds. In 2001, the Demographic and Behavioral Sciences branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development awarded the MPC a five-year center grant to support the infrastructure for population research.

The MPC has absorbed the functions of two earlier population research organizations at the University. The Center for Population Policy and Analysis (CPOP), located in the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, was established in 1987 to foster policy-relevant population research. Although CPOP was effective in stimulating policy-oriented demographic research, by the late 1990s it had become clear that a population center housed in a small collegiate unit with limited resources could no longer meet the growing needs of population researchers across the university. A second organization, the Historical Census Project (HCP), formerly located in the Department of History, was founded in 1989 to develop resources for research in population history. By the late 1990's, growth of sponsored research within the HCP had outstripped the ability of the History Department to provide adequate facilities and administration.

In addition to CPOP and HCP, the Minnesota Population Center is building on the rich array of existing programs in the University to enhance our national visibility and attract extramural funding. In particular, we are closely coordinating our efforts with other research units concerned with population issues, including the Life Course Center, the Center for Regional and Urban Affairs, the Race, Ethnicity and Migration Seminar, the Research Data Assistance Center, the State Health Access Data Assistance Center, the Social Science Research Facility, and the Machine-Readable Data Center.

Despite the diversity of the MPC, consistent philosophical underpinnings cut across all areas of demography at Minnesota. First, our members share a commitment to cross-disciplinary research. We represent an extraordinary diversity of departments and colleges, and are actively pursuing collaborative research that breaks down institutional and methodological barriers. Second, our membership shares a focus on the analysis of demographic behavior across time and space. This is in part a reflection of our strength in historical demography and population geography, but an emphasis on spatial and chronological analysis is evident throughout our membership, from the School of Management to the School of Public Health. Third, we have a focus on policy-relevant research. This is not confined to research in the Humphrey Institute and the School of Public Health; even the geographers and historians routinely address policy issues. Finally, our membership shares a strong empirical orientation and much of our work involves large-scale data analysis. Because of this, we have devoted considerable effort to the development of cutting-edge data access technology to share demographic data worldwide.