Informed and Actionable Insights
DCIIA’s Retirement Research Center (RRC) conducts industry-informed research focused on actionable insights. Our goal is to serve the industry and stakeholders as a reliable, fact-based, and authoritative research resource. We support improved financial and retirement security through research on public policy, investments, and behavioral factors affecting decision-making and industry innovation.
Types of Research:
- Ongoing core projects with the RRC members
- Collaborative partner projects with strategic partners
- Proprietary projects through the RRC Private Label
Research Overview
We study real-world behavior to understand how people save, invest, and retire.
RRC members receive exclusive reports, datasets, and event recordings.
Managed Accounts
The RRC is currently fielding a study to explore the evolving role of managed accounts in defined contribution plans. The goal is to better clarify the value proposition for participants, identify barriers to adoption, and surface best practices for plan sponsors, consultants, and providers. Research instruments seek to provide more insight into changing services, the role of digital advice or AI, and potential impacts into participant behaviors, including savings behavior, debt reduction, or retirement readiness.
Private Market Assets in DC
The RRC is currently scoping a research initiative to evaluate the considerations for adding private markets securities to DC plan menus. With an active working group, this research will explore challenges to including securities options on DC menus, innovation solutions, a range of delivery methods, fiduciary risk, and participant demand.
Evolution of Core Fund Menus
In a series of papers, the RRC is exploring DC plan core menus have changed in the recent past. Quantitative research is ongoing to release the final set of papers, assessing historical changes in the number of offerings, gains and losses of asset classes, index fund influences, and decision-making influences based on option fees.
Retirement Income
Following three prior phases, the RRC is continuing its research into retirement income with a participant survey. This survey will assess preferred product features, familiarity with options, educational materials, and usage trends.
Recordkeeper Distribution Options
The RRC will revisit its 2024 research study on retirement income and distribution capabilities offered by major recordkeepers. The purpose is to produce a current-state update on aggregated, platform-level offerings, technology constraints impacting solution availability, and strategic influences on solution adoption.
The outcomes of this study are intended to inform platform selection considerations for plan sponsors, refresh the benchmark for core retirement income capabilities, and contextualize the evolution of supply-side retirement income delivery.
AI Impact on Advice
The impact that artificial intelligence (AI) may have on financial advice provided through employer-sponsored retirement plans is profound. This study will primarily examine how AI can make financial advice more accessible and how that would impact investment and engagement. The research would be contingent upon in-depth interviews with major recordkeepers and plan sponsors, and results would support platform selection and capabilities.
Convergence / Coopetition
This study will examine trends around the convergence of retirement and wealth, as more plan sponsors seek holistic support for participants’ financial lives. In a rising trend, more wealth advisors are entering the retirement market, while recordkeepers and RPAs are faced with fee pressures and high costs of building new technology. These simultaneous forces are driving convergence of retirement and wealth businesses at the plan level. This study would provide a deep dive into the changing relationships, different convergence models, and economics between recordkeepers, TPAs, RPA and RIA aggregators, and plan sponsors.
Targeting Participants and Product Fit
Multiple solutions – such as guaranteed income solutions and managed accounts – lack an explicit definition for who they are most appropriate, which can lead to an understanding that they are suitable for an entire workforce. However, low participant adoption rates for optin solutions are generally framed as a participant engagement challenge rather than a targeting or product-fit issue. There is little practice-based research on how plan sponsors and consultants internally define a ‘good candidate’ for a solution or on the criteria used to decide when or for whom it makes sense.
This study would provide a new perspective on product adoption rates through the lens of candidate suitability to focus on quality in individual outcomes over the simple quantity of enrollment. These insights would be derived from both quantitative or qualitative phases to deepen understanding of committee ‘fit tests’, workforce patterns, balance tiers, and other qualifications that could meaningful separate low adoption from appropriately selective uptake with positive outcomes. The results would provide a new understanding for service providers to consider positioning, participant segmentation, and outcome measurements.
Small-Medium Business Market
The RRC will field a study that will examine plan dynamics of the small-medium business market through analysis of a robust database featuring plan level and participant examinations. Analysis will seek to reveal behavioral patterns of small business owners and their employees, which might include drivers of new plan adoption, projected plan growth, and unique implications for industry service providers in servicing small and medium plans.
Research Minute
With 2.3x over the average industry open rate, the Research Minute brings a series of brief, thought-provoking retirement research and behavioral economics ideas.
RRC Upcoming Events
Connect with plan sponsors shaping retirement security
Retirement Income Unlocked: Expert Answers to Member Questions
Managed Accounts in Focus: Personalization, Fees, and Participant Outcomes
RRC Roundtable & Philadelphia Ambassador Event
RRC Webinar: The Converging Worlds of Wealth and Retirement
Advisory Councils
To identify key research initiatives, the RRC is guided by multiple Advisory Councils.
These Councils advise the RRC on potential topics, review research papers, join working groups and events, and facilitate collaboration between the RRC team and specialized segments of the industry.
RRC Executive Committee
Brookfield Asset Management
Apollo Global Management/Athene
WTW
AllianceBernstein
T. Rowe Price
PGIM/Prudential/Jennison Associates
Partners Group
iCapital
Member Voices
What DCIIA means to our community.
"I have been particularly impressed by DCIIA’s diversity and inclusion initiatives. They have advanced this work with a level of purpose and intentionality that seeks to enhance access to retirement security for all American workers."
"I think DCIIA is one of the best-kept secrets in the advisor community. Membership requires a nominal investment for the return. It really pays for itself in that you get ongoing access to insights from the top people in the retirement industry. My senior ERISA consultant tells me he’s locked down when it comes to our DCIIA membership – there’s no way we can go without the access to people and thought leadership that it provides."
“When you have the opportunity to participate in an organization like DCIIA, you feel like you’re having an impact. That feeling inspires you to keep coming back, keep being involved. This is a group with a passion for defined contribution.”
“I believe we are doing meaningful work at DCIIA that is pushing the industry forward. What I absolutely love is that individuals — who in their day jobs might be direct competitors — can come together, collaborate, and learn from each other.”
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“DCIIA is a true community of knowledgeable industry peers who are genuinely committed to improving retirement outcomes. The conversations and connections here broaden my perspective and elevate my work.”
"DCIIA brings together an esteemed mix of practitioners, researchers, and policymakers who are genuinely focused on improving retirement outcomes. Being part of this community has given me access to thoughtful content, candid conversations, and relationships that help us stay grounded in what truly matters for savers."
Join the Research Conversation
Collaborate with us on studies, access our latest findings, or discuss your research needs.
Custom Insights
The RRC welcomes collaboration from industry professionals who want to contribute to meaningful research. Whether you're interested in shaping studies or accessing our findings, we have opportunities for your involvement.
Joining RRC
Stay connected with RRC research as it develops. Our team regularly releases reports, analysis, and findings that advance understanding across the defined contribution landscape.
RRC Staff
The Value of RRC Membership
As an RRC member, firms help guide the industry’s research agenda, contribute thought leadership, gain high‑value visibility, and build credibility through data‑driven insights and collaboration.
Shape Industry Direction
Guide the research agenda and influence key industry conversations by helping set project priorities, serving on event steering committees, and contributing through the RRC Executive Committee and Advisory Councils.
Elevate Thought Leadership
Take an active role in original research as a leader, collaborator, analyst, or co‑author, and gain early access to deep‑dive findings, working files, and raw data that keep you ahead of emerging trends.
Expand Visibility & Influence
Increase your firm’s presence across the RRC community by presenting at events, authoring Research Minute posts, co‑authoring reports, and engaging with peers, thought leaders, and academics at exclusive RRC Summits.
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Strengthen Market Credibility
Access bespoke research capabilities tailored to real‑world retirement challenges, supported by a proprietary team that designs and executes custom studies—reinforcing your firm’s expertise and leadership in the market.
Become an RRC Member
Complete our quick application and join an active community of industry leaders. We’ll reach out and guide you through each step of the membership process.
