IASB call for research on Making Materiality Judgements

The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) is looking to partner with a small number of national standard-setters to obtain research evidence about the effects of recent changes and additions to its literature applicable to making materiality judgments.

The objective of the research is to gather enough information to enable the IASB to assess these documents’ effects on investors, companies, auditors and regulators:

• Definition of Material (Amendments to IAS 1 Presentation of Financial Statements and IAS 8 Accounting Policies, Changes in Accounting Estimates and Errors);
• IFRS Practice Statement 2 Making Materiality Judgements; and
• Better Communication in Financial Reporting—Making disclosures more meaningful.

Judgements about materiality are essential to the application of IFRS Accounting Standards. Information about the effects of the documents already issued by the IASB will help inform its discussions about such judgements.

We envisage your contributions would involve:

• coordinating the research in your jurisdiction;
• selecting academics to conduct this research; and
• supporting the academics in their work.

We are looking for national standard-setters with experience working with academics on research topics pertinent to standard-setting. To be selected for this project, researchers must have a track record of publishing high-quality papers in peer-reviewed journals.

We believe that feedback on the application of the documents listed could be obtained using a variety of methods, including interviews with a range of stakeholders such as investors, companies, auditors and regulators. National standard-setters are likely to have stakeholders who may be interested in participating in this research and, thus, we hope they would be able to help academics to contact suitable participants.

To assist national standard-setters in evaluating our invitation, we have prepared a draft ‘Call for Research Proposals’. This Call details how such a research project could be carried out; national standard-setters can modify it as required and then discuss it with IASB technical staff. We suggest the research start by September 2022 and be completed within a year.

Further information can be obtained from Ana Simpson (asimpson@ifrs.org). National standard-setters who would like to participate should email an expression of interest to Ana Simpson by 31 May 2022. The expression of interest should provide the following information:

1. Name of national standard-setter and description of its experience in producing research relevant to the IASB and working with academics on research projects; and
2. An outline of proposed activities and a timeline for the activities, including:
   1. a draft call to academics for research proposals;
   2. a description of the proposed joint activities with academics; and
   3. required deliverables from academics, including their timing.