The Employee Benefit Research Institute and the National Association of Government Defined Contribution Administrators have teamed up to launch the Public Retirement Research Lab.
"The purpose is to create a single data resource that will stand as the national benchmark for public sector defined contribution plans," said EBRI president and CEO Lori Lucas, noting that such a benchmark does not exist.
Too often today the "public sector DC system has to turn to what's happening in the 401(k) system" for guidance, Ms. Lucas said.
Launched in December, the PRRL is planning to issue its first piece of research, which will address the tenure of public-sector workers. The research will be released in the next couple of weeks after being shared with PRRL's founding members, Ms. Lucas said.
The lab mines data from a new Public Sector Retirement Research Database, "a collaborative data collection effort between NAGDCA and EBRI," according to PRRL's website.
The lab is looking to recruit record keepers, plan sponsors, asset managers and other partners, saying on its website that "it is their opportunity to get in on the ground floor of research that will help define the future of public retirement plans."
The lab has so far recruited about a dozen founding members and supporting data partners. It could not immediately disclose who they were.
