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Professor Jakub Bijak

Professor Jakub Bijak

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Jakub Bijak

Professor of Demographic Science

Jakub is a statistical demographer, with background in economics and quantitative methods. He has obtained his PhD from Warsaw School of Economics for a thesis on Bayesian migration forecasting – his work in this area has ultimately led to shifting the perspective on the role of uncertainty in migration studies. Overall, Jakub has over 25 years of work experience in academia and international civil service, including the United Nations and International Organization for Migration (IOM). Prior to joining Oxford in 2026, he worked at the University of Southampton as a Professor of Statistical Demography, where in 2018–22 he was a Head of Department of Social Statistics and Demography. His research focuses on population and migration models and forecasts, demographic uncertainty, and demography of armed conflict, with forays into palaeodemography and philosophy of science.  

For his work on migration modelling Jakub has been awarded the inaugural Allianz European Demographer Award (2015) and the Jerzy Z Holzer Medal (2007). Throughout his career, he has led several research grants and projects, including an interdisciplinary European Research Council project “Bayesian Agent-based Population Studies” (2017–22, www.baps-project.eu), developing innovative simulation models of migration, and a Horizon 2020 QuantMig consortium on “Quantifying Migration Scenarios for Better Policy” (2020–23, www.quantmig.eu), focused on various aspects of quantitative migration scenarios and forecasting. In 2018–24, he served as the Editor-in-Chief of Demographic Research. He has written and edited three books and coauthored numerous articles across a broad range of journals in demography and applied statistics. 

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Jakub is a statistical demographer, with background in economics and quantitative methods. He has obtained his PhD from Warsaw School of Economics for a thesis on Bayesian migration forecasting – his work in this area has ultimately led to shifting the perspective on the role of uncertainty in migration studies. Overall, Jakub has over 25 years of work experience in academia and international civil service, including the United Nations and International Organization for Migration (IOM). Prior to joining Oxford in 2026, he worked at the University of Southampton as a Professor of Statistical Demography, where in 2018–22 he was a Head of Department of Social Statistics and Demography. His research focuses on population and migration models and forecasts, demographic uncertainty, and demography of armed conflict, with forays into palaeodemography and philosophy of science.  

 

For his work on migration modelling Jakub has been awarded the inaugural Allianz European Demographer Award (2015) and the Jerzy Z Holzer Medal (2007). Throughout his career, he has led several research grants and projects, including an interdisciplinary European Research Council project “Bayesian Agent-based Population Studies” (2017–22, www.baps-project.eu), developing innovative simulation models of migration, and a Horizon 2020 QuantMig consortium on “Quantifying Migration Scenarios for Better Policy” (2020–23, www.quantmig.eu), focused on various aspects of quantitative migration scenarios and forecasting. In 2018–24, he served as the Editor-in-Chief of Demographic Research. He has written and edited three books and coauthored numerous articles across a broad range of journals in demography and applied statistics. 

 

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