Towards innovation-friendly regulation – new framework helps to define approaches and practices

While radical innovation may bring much needed economic benefits and solutions to pressing societal challenges, they can also generate new risks and ethical dilemmas. New Policy Brief discusses the different aspects of innovation-friendly regulation.

Legislators are faced with difficult questions in trying to foresee an optimal legal framework, which would sufficiently leave space for and encourage new solutions, but at the same time would ensure safe conditions and fair benefits to everyone.

Increased attention is paid to developing innovation-friendly regulatory approaches and practices. The introduction of European Commission’s Innovation Principle, as well as several national initiatives (such as regulatory sandboxes and regulation roadmaps), are good examples of such development.

So far, there has not been a common definition, nor a comprehensive framework to grasp the different aspects of innovation-friendly regulation approaches and practices. Developing such framework has been one of the main objectives in Finnish government commissioned study on “Impacts of regulation on innovation and new markets”.

The framework presented in this Policy Brief structures the key elements, tools, and requirements for implementing innovation-friendly regulation in practice.

Final report (in Finnish with executive summary in English) is set to be published in March 2020.

Policy Brief: Framework for innovation-friendly regulation

Additional information: Vesa Salminen, 4FRONT Oy, Tel. +358 40 1252 370, [email protected]