On 19 March 2026, the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science (LCDS) at the University of Oxford brought together researchers, collaborators, industry and government for its annual Demographic Science Summit at Worcester College, Oxford. The event provided an opportunity to reflect on what has been an exceptionally productive year for the centre — marked by rapid growth, an expanding research community, and a remarkable output of new demographic and interdisciplinary research.

The COVID-19 pandemic reshaped mortality across the world, but official COVID-19 death counts often tell only part of the story. In countries where reporting practices differ or health systems are under strain, many pandemic-related deaths may be hidden in other causes. Understanding the true impact of the pandemic therefore requires looking beyond COVID-19 itself. In this new working paper, Ekaterina Degtiareva, whose PhD research is based at the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science (LCDS), together with Sergey Timonin, Andrea Tilstra (LCDS), and José Manuel Aburto, provide the first detailed cause-specific analysis of excess mortality in Russia during 2020–2021.