The Scottish Financial Risk Academy ("SFRA") was established in 2010 with the aim of enhancing the quality and understanding of risk in financial services and its management across the financial sector by exploiting the knowledge, skills and complementary expertise found in academic and in real industrial practice.

 
The aims of the SFRA are to

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• provide companies in the financial services industry operating in Scotland and universities with an efficient framework for interacting with each other on matters relating to risk in financial services;

• explore opportunities for companies in the financial services industry operating in Scotland to collaborate in managing risk in financial services more effectively/efficiently;

• improve the understanding of risk in financial services through a programme of knowledge exchange activities;

• provide advanced training opportunities for employees of companies and members of academia including PhD students;

• help companies with their recruitment needs by helping to boost the postgraduate talent pool in Scotland;

• help companies understand and evaluate the latest research from academia and industry thought leaders;

• provide networking opportunities for company employees and academics;

• enhance the reputation of Scotland as a centre of excellence in financial services related research and innovation;

• react to developments in financial services and financial services education with appropriate new activities;

• develop position papers, academic journal papers, conference presentations and workshop presentations that reflect challenges jointly identified by industry and academic groups as meaningful to the progression of the disciplines of financial modelling, data analytics, risk assessment and mitigation, and insurance in Scotland.

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On 1 March 2019 the board of Scottish Financial Enterprise (SFE) approved the creation of the SFRA Special Interest Group (the "SFRA Group") as an SFE working group. The SFRA Group will provide a forum for linking the activities of SFRA and SFE and will enable SFRA to access and benefit from input from SFE's extensive membership base.