Actuarial centre of excellence to focus on research with benefit for businesses

Published on 10/09/2012 00:00

Scotland has been chosen as the home of a new “centre of excellence” for actuarial science that promises to deliver research partnerships and practical applications for both businesses and policy-makers.

The Actuarial Research Centre (Arc), based at the Scottish Financial Risk Academy (SFRA), which is led by the Maxwell Institute for Mathematical Sciences, will be launched at a reception at Holyrood tomorrow.

The venture, a partnership between the SFRA and the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFA), will co-fund PhD students who will focus on delivering “valuable” yet practical research. So far two PhD candidates have been recruited, with six expected to be in place by 2014. Actuarial firms Hymans Robertson and Partnership are co-sponsoring two research projects.

David Hare, president-elect of the IFA, said: “The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries have provided substantial funding to bring Arc to life because it is vital that the international actuarial profession has a centre of excellence that produces valuable research that can benefit not only the profession, but also the businesses that actuaries work with.”

He added: “More and more the regulators of financial institutions are looking for greater sophistication in the modelling of risk. It is important that sophistication is across a broad range of risks to enable businesses to deepen their understanding of risk, allocate capital and ensure appropriate policy holder security. Actuarial science is at the heart of much of this analysis.”

Arc will be led by Andrew Cairns, professor of financial mathematics at Heriot-Watt.