In April 2021 we started the first Cycle of Debates within the Observatory, named “Complementary Social Pension Plans and Welfare State”. During its five sessions, we tried to analyse Complementary Social Pension Plans in Spain from different viewpoints.

During its first year and a half of activity, the Observatory has carried out reports analysing the situation of pension plans in Spain, a research that has tightened the collaboration with the General Direction of Insurance and Pension Funds. New alliances were also settled to develop new projects at national -with the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Catalan Federation of Mutuality to develop the White Paper of complementary social pension plans in Catalonia, and with Unespa for the co-organization of the Seminar about the Role of Insurance Entities on Complementary Social Pension Plans- and international level -with different European research structures to carry out the European Seminar on Private Pensions-.

On May 15, 2020, the Government Council of the UB, on an ordinary meeting, agreed to approve the creation of the Observatory of European Systems of Complementary Social Pension Plans. It was created in the middle of the lockdown caused by the pandemic, which made the beginning of the planned activity notably difficult. However, we started working from Day 1 after the creation. Our website was published in June 2020, and the fourth edition of the Higher University Course of Pension Plans and Funds. This time, opposite to the previous ones, it was made in online format.

On December 5, 2019, we received the external evaluation reports made by AGAUR. After adding our correction proposals for the aspects where evaluators found room for improvement to the Creation Memory. Then, it was presented to the Research Commission, delegated by the Government Council of the UB, in an ordinary meeting on May 6, after being part of the agenda on the ordinary meeting held on February 20. Once the proposal of creation was passed, it was raised to the Government Council for its definitive approval.

During this period, besides writing the aforementioned memory, we had to gather the support from the highest possible number of institutions and entities that play a determinant role in complementary social pension plans, without whose support and recognition the project would have lacked all sense. We also worked to establish the multidisciplinary researchers team that would move forward towards the goals set for the Observatory.