Research Competitions and Awards
The Society of Actuaries Research Institute offers opportunities for recognition and awards for academic research.
Current Competitions and Awards
SOA Research Institute Student Research Case Study Challenge
The SOA Research Institute annually hosts a Student Research Case Study Challenge, which provides an opportunity for teams of students to apply their actuarial skills on a real world problem. Over the course of nine weeks, teams of up to five students research a given case study, conduct actuarial analysis, formulate solutions and present recommendations. Finalists are invited to present to a panel of SOA member judges for top awards. All teams who meet a minimum standard are recognized in official SOA publications.
Spotlight Societal Purpose Award
The SOA Spotlight Societal Purpose Award is dedicated to recognizing the extraordinary contributions of candidates, members, affiliates, and employers who are leaders in championing community involvement for positive purpose.
Actuarial Science Early Career Award
The Actuarial Science Early Career Award, sponsored by the SOA and its Education & Research Section, celebrates the educational and research contributions of an actuarial academic, and their ongoing efforts to expand and elevate the actuarial profession on a global level. This annual award, established in 2021, recognizes individuals for their exceptional scientific contributions in actuarial science at the early stages of their academic career.
Past Competitions and Rewards
Individual Life Experience Committee Mortality Prediction and Presentation Contest
Winners are announced! The Individual Life Experience Committee created this competition to invite contestants to predict future mortality based on an existing data set. The contest rules, data and results can be found here.
2020 Data Visualization Contest
Winners are announced! The Actuarial Innovation and Technology Steering Committee of the Society of Actuaries Research Institute sponsored this competition to encourage contestants to find innovative usages for data visualization software. This contest seeks to give actuaries and non-actuaries the chance to showcase their ability to tell a story by creating data visualizations for one of two standard datasets that have been created for this purpose. The submission period was between December 11, 2020 at 12:00:01 a.m. Central Standard Time (“CST”) and January 15, 2021 at 11:59:59 p.m. CST. Please see the Contest Page for full contest information, rules and results.
2018 Data Analysis Contest
The Society of Actuaries Research Institute previously sponsored a Data Analysis Contest to encourage SOA members and students, as well as the general public, to apply their data analysis and predictive analytics skills to a large preliminary public dataset to test the dataset for issues, gaps, inconsistencies and problems. This program ran in 2018.
The Halmstad Prize
The David Garrick Halmstad prize is given annually for actuarial research in memory of David Halmstad, a former Associate of the SOA, for his significant contributions to actuarial science and research. The paper is selected by a committee of the SOA's Education and Research Section who examine major English language actuarial journals, nominate outstanding papers, review selected articles and vote for the best paper. The results of these proceedings are submitted to The Actuarial Foundation Research Committee for ratification. See a list of previous winners.