Thanks to the support of official statistical agencies from a large number of European countries, the Integrated European Census Microdata (IECM) database, one of the world’s largest integrated research infrastructure for the study of human populations, is now under construction.

The database will contain anonymized microdata samples encompassing as many as 50 censuses and totaling more than 70 million person records. With major funding by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) of the United States, integration and full documentation of the data are being organized by the Minnesota Population Center, in parallel with similar activities covering other parts of the world with sustained funding by the National Science Foundation of the United States.

By 2010, the IPUMS International is committed to disseminating at least 150 integrated census microdata sets from 40 or more countries. European censuses will constitute approximately one-third of the database thanks to the widespread support of national statistical agencies in Europe.

The Centre d'Estudis Demogràfics (CED) has been successful in attracting European Union Sixth Framework Programme support for enhancing, harmonizing and disseminating the integrated European microdata and metadata as well as for coordinating tasks based in Europe.