There has been a growing consensus within the actuarial profession's leadership that the profession needs to strengthen its capabilities to provide research and analysis that is responsive to important issues of immediate public, social or media interest. The actuarial profession has a unique and valuable perspective to provide on such issues, but it sometimes lacks hard data and research necessary for timely modeling and analysis of issues.

At its February 2010 meeting, the SOA Board of Directors considered and approved a pilot project that seeks to strengthen the SOA's ability to provide timely, focused, and relevant research to the public. Using the retirement practice area as a starting point, the Board approved a "rapid research" pilot project that will focus on developing relevant research on retirement plans by giving the SOA the in-house capability to model plans and provide research results more quickly than is currently standard with longer-term research projects.

The SOA Board recently approved a newly created staff actuary position at the SOA. The Retirement Research Actuary will be responsible for developing and completing retirement research. Please read more about this position and apply here.