Research Challenge

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CFA Institute Research Challenge

The CFA Institute Research Challenge is an annual global competition that connects university students with investment professionals from within the CFA Society® network. The competition provides students with hands-on mentoring and intensive training in financial analysis and ethics and tests participants' analytical, valuation, reporting writing, and presentation skills.

Members of our society, along with a faculty advisor and an industry mentor, work with teams of students to value a stock, write a research report, and present their recommendations. Teams then compete with peers from other schools at local-level competitions organized and judged by CFA Society members and volunteers. The winning university team(s) from each local competition then advances to see who will become the sub-regional, regional, and global champions. 

Learn more and read FAQs See the schedule and get involved

Local Research Challenge

After two years of remote local finals presentations, we were once again able to hold the local CFA Research Challenge presentations in person in February 2023. Three teams from the University of Pittsburgh, Penn State University (University Park), and Penn State University (Behrend) competed to the conclusion of the competition, each submitting a written report and presenting their findings live to a panel of judges. A special thank you to Duolingo (DUOL) for being this year's local subject company. Congratulations to this year's winning team, Penn State University (University Park)!

The 2023-2024 IRC, featuring Koppers Holding Inc. (KOP) as the subject company, is right around the corner and is set to kick off in late September or early October 2023.  If you are a faculty member or student from a regional college or university and would like your school to participate, please contact Eric Fencil. Additional information will be made available to interested participants. If you are a local industry professional who would like to volunteer as either an industry mentor, grader, or judge, also please reach out to Eric – we can always use more help!

The winning 2022-2023 IRC team (PSU University Park)
The winning 2022-2023 IRC team (PSU University Park)

Logo for the 2023-2024 IRC subject company