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Abu Dhabi, 5th December 2023:  The Social Protection Fund, in cooperation with the General Secretariat of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, launched the first edition of the Scientific Research Award for Civil Retirement and Social Insurance Institutions in the GCC region in Oman this year, announced the General Pension and Social Security Authority (GPSSA).


The award, supervised by the Social Protection Fund in Oman organized every two years, aims to uncover the most prominent challenges facing civil pension and social insurance institutions in the GCC, in addition to enhancing the culture of pension and social insurance through creating research platforms and presenting fields related to scientific competencies in the GCC.


The Scientific Research Award aims to motivate young people, researchers, scholars, and those with qualifications to provide practical solutions to issues by conducting analytical research that evaluates GCC experiences at the level of pension systems, while examining the most important challenges, risks, and improvement opportunities to enrich the present and future.


Additionally, the initiative will further support scientific research in the field of social protection, provide a platform for researchers across the GCC region to study the most important contemporary issues and challenges in fields related to the social protection system, while enriching science and knowledge related to civil retirement and social insurance systems. Research outputs are expected to enrich internal strategic planning across civil pension and social insurance institutions, while stimulating academic organizations to offer specializations concerned with actuarial science.


Targeted research areas include actuarial science, its importance and challenges, investments in civil retirement devices and social insurance systems, laws and legislation of civil retirement devices and social insurance systems related to the protection extension system, the role of civil retirement devices and social insurance systems in economic development; developing insurance services and the quality of insurance services in supporting strategic planning in civil pension systems and social insurance systems.


The areas to be covered also include developing civil retirement and social insurance systems and expanding coverage in light of international best practices, technology and the use of artificial intelligence and its role in the development of civil pension systems and social insurance systems, the quality of business continuity plans (BCP), and the role of the international agreements in improving the work of pension, social insurance systems, governance of civil retirement and social insurance authorities.


The most important conditions in order to participate in the competition is for applicants to be researchers in their own capacity, and that the application is submitted in one of the fields related to civil pension and social insurance systems; also, the research submitted must not have been previously published in part or extracted from a doctoral thesis, master’s thesis, or project. Currently, to obtain a postgraduate degree from any university or in any language, the research must be submitted in either Arabic or English, and the candidate must fill out the nomination application electronically through the award’s website.


The target groups for the award are under two categories: the first is researchers with master’s and doctoral degrees, and the second is researchers with bachelor degrees and university and college students. The committee has allocated prizes for the contestants amounting to Dh200,000. 


Those who wish to participate, must fill out the electronic nomination form on the award’s website gccaward.spf.gov.om noting that the results of the winning research will be announced in the first quarter of 2025.