UK – Adair Turner, the chairman of the Pension Commission which presented its first report this week, has joined the Pension Institute at the Cass Business School.

The director of the institute, Professor David Blake, told delegates to a conference that Turner would be a visiting professor.

Other visiting professors include former UK social security minister Frank Field, and opposition pensions spokesmen Steve Webb and David Willetts.

In February this year the institute moved across London, from Birkbeck College to Cass, in the heart of London’s financial district, with Blake becoming Professor of Pension Economics. The institute - set up in 1996 - is the only UK academic research centre focused on pensions research.

Last month the institute issued research which found that company finance directors in the UK had “taken control of the defined contribution (DC) pension purse strings and many impose strict limits on the number of employees that join, in order to reduce the company's pension costs”.

Turner is also a visiting professor at the London School of Economics and a former head of the Confederation of British Industry.

In addition to chairing the Pension Commission, he is vice chairman of Merrill Lynch Europe, a director of United Business Media plc, chair of the UK Low Pay Commission and chair of the UK Pensions Commission. He is also a visiting professor at the London School of Economics.

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