RESAVER, the long-planned pension fund for academic researchers who work across the European Union – is to be launched next year.

The following institutions have joined forces to set up the initial scheme: the Central European University Budapest; the Central European Research Infrastructure Consortium (CERIC-ERIC); Elettra-Sincrotrone Trieste; Fondazione Edmund Mach; Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia; Technical University of Vienna; and the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU)

The not-for-profit association will be set up as a Belgium-based vehicle, to which the European Commission will award a four-year framework contract before the end of 2014.

In a statement, European commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science Máire Geoghegan-Quinn said: “Pensions are a serious barrier to free movement, but today that barrier has begun to crumble.”

She added that he “strongly encouraged” research organisations across Europe to join.

RESAVER, or the Retirement Savings Vehicle for European Research Institutions, will allow the cross-border pooling of pension plans, the continuation of accumulation at job change, “lower overhead costs through economies of scale” and a “pan-European risk pooling”.

In mid-September, the European Commission issued a statement noting it had lined up funding under Horizon 2020 to sponsor the set-up of the IORP, the insurance scheme and administration, including the selection of providers, and that the fund should become operational in early 2015.