Outside the sandbox: regulating for innovation

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This write-up brings together ideas generated at a Re:State private roundtable led by David Lunn, Director of Regulation at the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, and Iain Wood, Director of Digital Policy at Amazon UK, exploring how regulation shapes the path from invention to market.

By definition, genuine innovation is difficult to regulate effectively – there is always the risk of understandable safety measures creating a hostile environment for innovative practices and products, or regulators and policymakers moving too slowly to regulate crucial technological developments which happen too fast for them to adjust to. Regulatory reform that ensures space for innovation and a more responsive approach to innovators is essential for growth.

Regulation sets the terms on which a new product can reach the market, and it decides how quickly and how cheaply an innovator can test an idea, win approval, and grow. Done well, it gives investors and the public confidence that new technologies are safe to back and safe to use. Done badly, it is where good ideas stall: arriving late, watered down, or not at all.

The roundtable that helped to inform this write-up was held under the Chatham House Rule and was kindly supported by Amazon.