Morningstar will step up its research focus on the industry superannuation fund sector as part of its strategy for 2011.

The research firm currently has a number of industry superannuation funds on its research database, including AustralianSuper and Cbus.

"We are getting increasing interest for information from advisers and dealer groups for information and opinions on some of the large industry superannuation funds," Morningstar co-head of research Tim Murphy said.

"These advisers have clients who have existing investments in these funds and therefore need information on these funds."

Murphy said Morningstar's move into industry superannuation fund research was consistent with its business model.

"Our business model of not paying product providers puts us in a pretty good position to talk to these industry superannuation funds," he said. 

"We have been engaging with them over the last year with the aim of putting them on our database."

Morningstar has been collecting information on these funds.

"The next step is to do the research and to make some formal assessments of these funds," Murphy said.

Advisers have argued they are unable to recommend industry superannuation funds to their clients because these funds do not carry a research rating from the research houses.

Dealer groups can only offer investment products to advisers if these products carry a research rating.

Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees chief Fiona Reynolds said she supported moves to put industry superannuation funds on a level playing field with other funds.

"We welcome any development in the advisory space that recognises the value of not-for-profit super funds and puts them on an equal footing with other funds," Reynolds said.

A number of government reforms aimed at reducing costs in the superannuation industry will come into effect in 2012/13.

These include the phasing out of commissions paid to financial advisers and the introduction of MySuper, a low-cost standardised fund for members who are not engaged with their superannuation.

"Clearly in the new world a lot of the arguments between retail and industry superannuation funds will go out of the window. To use their expression, we will compare the pair using the same criteria we use for retail funds," Murphy said.