Every year, teams of university students around the world take on something that looks suspiciously like real actuarial work: a messy, multidimensional business problem, a dataset that’s big enough to be annoying (in a good way) and has errors, and a hard deadline. Then they’re told—politely but firmly—to do the analysis and explain it like an advisor talking to busy executives.
That’s the Society of Actuaries (SOA) Research Institute’s annual Student Research Case Study Challenge (SRCSC). While there are plenty of case study contests in our orbit, this one sits in a rarer category: it’s not just “build a model,” it’s “build a model, decide what it means and persuade a nontechnical decision-maker to act.”
The challenge is part of a deliberate mission to partner with universities and help develop future actuaries through practical research and business-style problem-solving, and it’s been running since 2015.
What It’s All About
At its core, the challenge is designed to simulate the work environment of an actuary: a tight timeline, imperfect information, complex analysis, real trade-offs and the need to communicate clearly to decision-makers.
The challenge is explicit about the “business audience” goal: teams of two to five students must research the case, conduct an actuarial analysis, formulate solutions and produce a written report aimed at an executive audience that needs complex ideas distilled concisely.
Importantly, the challenge is not just to submit your spreadsheet and call it a day. The deliverable is a professional narrative: what you did, why you did it, what you recommend, what could go wrong and what you’d do next if this were a real executive decision.
If that sounds like consulting, it is. If it sounds like internal actuarial work, it’s that as well.
What Sets the SOA Challenge Apart From the Others
Plenty of competitions reward technical cleverness. The SOA challenge certainly values strong analysis, but it also rewards the ability to synthesize and communicate.
Judges summarize their evaluation into six equally weighted categories, including external research, thorough analysis, creative recommendations, documented assumptions and data limitations, and—crucially—communication: clear and complete responses that are cohesive and appropriate for executives of varying professional backgrounds.
That’s the dividing line. Many actuarial students can do the math. Doing the math and explaining it without accidentally writing a novella of equations . . . well, that’s a different story. As is turning results into a decision-maker-ready story that respects time, uncertainty and business priorities. The challenge is built to identify and develop that skill set.
The Cases
The cases lean toward emerging or not-yet-standard actuarial work, forcing students to research, make judgment calls and build structure from ambiguity. This year’s challenge involved designing an insurance product covering four hazard areas in the year 2175 for an intergalactic mining company. A few more examples from recent years give a feel for the span of topics:
- Design a program to insure against damages from catastrophic earthen dam failure.
- Develop a life insurance product coupled with a wellness intervention program.
- Design a carbon credit program.
- Develop a social long-term care system.
Put those together and you get a quiet message: actuarial thinking belongs in more rooms than the traditional ones.
Who Participates
University students at any level from any country in the world are welcome to participate. Participation is truly global! For example, the 2026 Challenge had 100 submissions comprised of a total of 399 students from 65 universities spanning 19 countries.
Students work in teams of two to five to tackle the challenge. The SOA encourages teams to work with a faculty advisor. Students may also work with an additional mentor, but in the end, the submitted work must be produced and written by the team.
How Judging Works
Judging occurs over three rounds:
- Round 1: Papers are first split into global regions and then into groups to be reviewed by small judging teams. Each team advances approximately the top 25% of its papers. This approach ensures that the proportion of papers advancing to round 2 (the semifinals) roughly matches the proportion of papers submitted from each of the global regions.
- Semifinals: All judges review all semifinalist papers. Scores are compiled and analyzed, and the top six papers advance.
- Finals: Finalist teams deliver a 15-minute virtual presentation, followed by 15 minutes of questions and answers. Judges rank the finalists, and the top three are identified and announced.
This process does two important things. First, it rewards strong written work (because you can’t “present your way out” of weak analysis). Second, it tests whether the team can defend decisions in a face-to-face situation—exactly what happens when executives ask, “So, what would you do if this assumption is wrong?”
What the Students Say
Ask winning teams what surprised them most, and many don’t start with the math (though there’s plenty of that). They talk about how much they learned—about the topic itself, the actuarial analysis behind it and the “real work” skills that don’t show up neatly in a formula bar. They describe learning how to divide responsibilities without creating a pile of disconnected parts, how to trust teammates to own key pieces and how to tackle an overwhelming problem by breaking it into manageable chunks—while still keeping one coherent story from beginning to end.
Just as importantly, they highlight the discipline of distilling pages of results into a handful of key findings with a brief, solid rationale, then communicating those points in plain language. Most are pleased (and appropriately proud) of what they produced, and they strongly encourage other students to participate.
The Part Nobody Sees: The Volunteer Engine
If students experience the challenge as an eight-week sprint, volunteers experience it as a marathon with a six-week sprint at the end.
Each year, a global team of roughly 15–20 volunteer actuaries from industry and actuarial science professors brainstorms topics and designs the case to expose students to work they likely haven’t encountered in classes or internships. Rather than just “pick a topic,” the team builds the whole environment from scratch:
- Product ideation: choosing something new enough to be interesting but established enough to make research possible
- Case writing: creating a coherent business scenario in a fictitious setting that feels real
- Data creation: developing and refining datasets to support meaningful analysis
- Expectation-setting: fine-tuning what “good” looks like so the deliverables are clear
- Judging: reading, scoring, debating and ultimately selecting winners across multiple rounds
The time commitment is real. Weekly team calls, with homework, from September through early January to choose the topic, write the case and create the data, followed by judging that spans five to six weeks starting in mid-March.
The Takeaway
The SOA Research Institute’s Student Research Case Study Challenge is elite in the most useful way: it insists on the full stack of actuarial work—analysis, research, strategy, limitations and executive-ready communication—under real deadlines.
The challenge is a reminder of what separates “good analyst” from “trusted advisor”:
- You can’t outsource judgment to a model. You have to pick assumptions, document limitations and make trade-offs.
- You can’t hide behind technical language. The target audience is executives with mixed backgrounds, and communication is explicitly part of what’s judged.
- You have to be concise. The challenge intentionally limits space and pushes teams to highlight key results and recommendations quickly—because that’s how business works.
And it exists because a global group of volunteers decides, every year, to build a brand-new “real-world” problem from scratch—then spend months shaping it, testing it and judging it with care.
For students, it’s a proving ground. For the profession, it’s a pipeline-builder. And for everyone watching, it’s a yearly reminder that actuarial work is at its best when it’s not just correct but also clear, compelling and useful for decision-makers. You can find out more about it, including winning teams, top papers and past topics at https://www.soa.org/research/opportunities/2026-student-research-case-study-challenge/.
And if you’re interested in being part of the volunteer team that makes it all happen, please contact Lisa Schilling at the address below.
This article is provided for informational and educational purposes only. Neither the Society of Actuaries nor the respective authors’ employers make any endorsement, representation or guarantee with regard to any content, and disclaim any liability in connection with the use or misuse of any information provided herein. This article should not be construed as professional or financial advice. Statements of fact and opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors and are not necessarily those of the Society of Actuaries or the respective authors’ employers.
Lisa Schilling, FSA, EA, FCA, MAAA, is the director of practice research at the Society of Actuaries. Lisa can be reached at lschilling@soa.org.