Summary of the evaluation of the Centre for Regulatory Innovation

About the Centre for Regulatory Innovation

The Centre for Regulatory Innovation (CRI) was established in late 2019 to help regulatory departments and agencies (RDAs):

• adopt innovative regulatory approaches that support regulatory competitiveness
• work with industry on bringing new technologies into the marketplace

We evaluated the impact of the CRI’s activities from its inception to December 2022.

Highlights

• There is an ongoing need to support regulatory innovation and experimentation given the demand for the CRI’s services and funding, and the benefits that innovation brings to advance public policy.
• The CRI evolved to its current role of building RDA capacity and enabling innovative approaches for regulatory innovation.
• The CRI supported innovation to some extent. The CRI’s guidance and best practices strengthened RDAs’ experimentation capacity. Time will tell whether this strengthening is sustainable.
• The current design of the Regulators’ Capacity Fund (RCF) is efficient, and RCF recipients applied the results of their projects to varying degrees.
• RDAs faced challenges meeting Regulatory Experimentation Expense Fund (REEF) criteria, and the REEF struggled to disburse funds. It is too early to say whether REEF recipients will apply the results of their projects.

Recommendations

It is recommended that the CRI:

1. focus on innovation more broadly, with experimentation being only a component among many. This could be accomplished by developing a strategic framework for innovation and by creating a regulatory toolbox.
2. improve awareness of their products and services to enable more departments and agencies to engage in regulatory innovation and connect with RDAs already working in that space.
3. strengthen its partnerships with players in the innovation ecosystem, in and outside the Government of Canada, to inform the CRI’s suite of services.