The UK Government had announced a £12-million regulatory innovation fund to help the country develop the use of new technologies.

The Regulators’ Pioneer Fund will enable regulators and local authorities to test and experiment ambitious regulatory approaches to tackle the most pressing issues of the day – from treating disease and delivering vaccines to tackling regional inequality, for example.

With the third round of the fund, applicants will be able to bid for up to £1 million per project. The fund will particularly welcome initiatives aimed at tackling the cost of living crisis, aiding the transition to net zero, or supporting efforts to level up the UK.

For the UK Government, the fund provides a crucial part of the country’s sustained drive towards being a global science and technology superpower and will support the UK’s regulatory environment to keep pace with cutting-edge innovation.

Business Minister Lord Callanan said: “Regulators and innovation can seem strange bedfellows, but through this fund we’ll make sure they are a match made in heaven.

“By empowering regulators to embrace the most exciting developments in their industry, we’ll pave the way for entrepreneurship that can deliver tangible benefits for the British public.”

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Previous funding rounds have helped develop regulatory approaches for a variety of UK sectors. These include:

• Creating a world-first framework for licensing crash-protected containers that drones can use to carry sensitive items including medical goods like vaccines.
• Enabling the Intellectual Property Office to harness artificial intelligence to improve the speed with which innovators and organisations can register intellectual property rights (IPR).
• Developing standards for gene therapy to prevent or treat disease and improve health for many people in the UK and beyond.
• Exploring the use of adaptive AI algorithms in medical devices to protect and improve public health.
• Developing a framework to facilitate the use of technology and innovation in the legal sector to address regional inequalities in access to justice.
• Creating an interactive tool to help small business owners more easily understand fire safety requirements, reducing risk to life and the environment.
• Building an ‘Innovation Hub’ that will bring together relevant bodies to unblock legislative and regulatory barriers to innovations like flying taxis.

The fund opened for applications from the 21st of July and will receive applications until the 29th of September.

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