The Icelandic pensions lobby has announced that a new academic unit – the Pensions Research Institute – is being set up at the beginning of 2024 at the University of Iceland, following an agreement signed on Tuesday.

Iceland pensions research institute team

 Jón Atli Benediktsson at University of Iceland (bottom row, second from left) along with all others involved

Parties signing the pact were the Icelandic Pension Funds Association (Landssamtök lífeyrissjóða, LL), the University of Iceland, the Central Bank of Iceland and the Ministry of Finance and Economy, LL said yesterday.

The association said: ”The aim is to promote research and increase understanding of pension matters, to facilitate cooperation with foreign academics, to gather information and ideas about the organisation of pension matters abroad, and to suggest possible solutions and improvements to respond to the challenges that pension funds in Iceland face.”

Though the institute will be professionally independent, LL said it would work closely with the Pensions Research Centre (PeRCent), the joint initiative between Copenhagen Business School and the Danish pension sector set up nine years ago.

Jón Atli Benediktsson, rector of the University of Iceland, said: “We have taken a successful step and look forward to embarking on the important tasks that await this new organisation.”

The new institute is to be a platform for collaboration between academics in the field of pensions at the University of Iceland, the central bank, the ministry, and other institutions, LL said.

The agreement stipulates that the institute will maintain a website, organise workshops for academics and an annual conference to present research results, and support one doctoral student each year and one employee to work on research needed for the Icelandic pension system.

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