Institutions of Innovation: Regulatory Horizons Council
'Institutions of Innovation' is a series of monthly interviews with the institutions driving the UK’s innovation policy.
Each contribution gradually pieces together the UK's innovation landscape; setting out the key actors, what they do, where they sit and how industry can engage, including through techUK.
This month's insight focuses on the Regulatory Horizons Council (RHC).
Further information about the RHC's work can be found on their website here.
These responses have been provided by Professor Lucy Mason, Member of the RHC
I see the Regulatory Horizons Council (RHC) is an independent expert committee that identifies the implications of technological innovation, and provides government with impartial, expert advice on the regulatory reform required to support its rapid and safe introduction. What does this mean in practice?
In practice, the Regulatory Horizons Council is a small impartial group with expertise across a huge range of areas – from regulatory policy to quantum tech, biotech, AI, defence and security, and more.
All the members of the RHC have ‘day jobs’ away from the RHC which gives us a lot of breadth and perspective from academia and industry. We have a lot of freedom to operate, which is great, and are supported by a brilliant team of civil servants in the Department Science, Innovation, and Technology (DSIT) who do excellent work navigating that tricky balance between independence and providing good advice to government in the right way.
The RHC meet regularly, which is always valuable to us for sharing ideas and coming up with new areas we might explore! We also share information on developing regulation, and discuss key themes such as innovation, regulatory culture and emerging technology trends. I particularly enjoy how the RHC is really autonomous, which means we can ‘speak truth to power’ and say things that maybe aren’t quite aligned to current government policy, but we’ve also found the civil service and political leaders very open to discussions and new ideas and challenge.
One thing that is quite important to the way that we operate is that government is not in any way bound to accept our recommendations, rather that they have agreed to engage with them and set out their rationale for whether or not they are taking them forward.
What kind of relationship does the RHC have with its closest institutional neighbours?
Our closest relationship in government is with the Regulatory Innovation Office (RIO), which was unveiled last month by DSIT, and is a new initiative designed to propel new products and services into the market within some of the UK's most rapidly expanding sectors.
The RHC is an integral part of RIO, and will support the RIO’s understanding of emerging technologies and the regulatory landscape and support the drive for greater regulatory innovation across the government missions.
More generally our relationships depend on which areas we are looking at, at any given moment, for example for our recent report on space technologies, I engaged a lot with the Satellite Applications Catapult who were very helpful. Our closest relationships – apart from central government – are of course with the regulators, and we spend a lot of time talking to various regulators about all sorts of areas.
Beyond DSIT, what are the key departments that the RHC works most closely with?
Again, mostly it depends on the topics we are exploring. In recent work, we have collaborated with the Department for Business and Trade, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Transport, and the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, among others.
More broadly, how does the RHC work with external stakeholders, including organisations across the UK, to drive innovation?
I think this is our key strength as a Council, we engage very widely in developing our reports and undertaking deep dives into different areas – so for example in the space report I went so far as to create an open document and invite anyone who wanted to contribute to it! We also held external workshops with industry and academia, and circulated drafts widely for consultation to take in as wide a range of ideas as we could. That makes our reports much stronger, because they reflect the views of a large number of stakeholders and not just the RHC experts. I’ve noticed as well that the role of the RHC as independent advisors to government encourages people to come and speak to us very openly and frankly, in ways they might not be comfortable talking to government directly, so that’s a key role we can play as a broker.
How can techUK’s 1100+ industry members best engage with the RHC?
We have a general email address ([email protected]) and we often hold engagement events around specific areas we are exploring to engage with industry, start ups and academics about how technologies are changing and how regulatory environments need to adapt to change, and can support innovation.
We do quite a lot of comms including on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/regulatory-horizons-council/ so follow us on there and engage in the conversations!
Additionally, techUK members can stay in the loop on the latest RHC news, publications and events by subscribing to our newsletter.
Can you name any examples of how the RHC has worked with techUK in the past? If so, what have you enjoyed, valued, or learned during the process?
techUK have been very active in space, for example, we have supported various techUK events and provided speakers to talk about the emerging work we were doing on space technology regulation, and then also techUK were part of our report launch event in April. As part of our quantum work, techUK and the RHC organised a roundtable to delve into the UK Government’s existing approach to regulating applications of quantum technology. These discussions played a crucial role in shaping the evidence base for our subsequent quantum report.
In addition, I’ve always enjoyed engaging with techUK members – and have done so in previous roles including as former Head of the Defence and Security Accelerator. I find the discussion are always lively and interesting and great for meeting new people to talk to!
What is the RHC's long-term vision for the UK’s innovation landscape? Are there any areas in which working with industry will be particularly crucial?
We’ve a long-standing interest in helping regulatory cultures support innovation through our Closing the Gap work - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/closing-the-gap-getting-from-principles-to-practice-for-innovation-friendly-regulation, and using regulation to help businesses scale up – our recent report has made a number of recommendations in this area - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/regulatory-horizons-council-the-role-of-regulation-in-supporting-scaling-up. These areas need industry to help develop them so that regulation is practicable, proportionate and effective.
Finally, what is the RHC’s main priority over the next 12 months?
We are currently reviewing what workstrands we want to pursue over the coming year in terms of specific technologies, but we are progressing on projects encouraging innovative cultures in regulatory organisations, and helping the new Government think about the future regulatory landscape, and regulating the engineering biology sector.
As the RIO further establishes itself and develops the four areas of focus already announced, we will continue to collaborate closely with them on those areas and to act as an early warning to flag other emerging technologies. We might, for example, explore AI regulation more broadly as both the technologies and the policy environment develop further. We also want to support the implementation of the recommendations we have made in our various reports, and are working with DSIT to explore the best way to engage and follow up on recommendations we have made, and to track their success. This includes the recently published response to the Regulatory Horizon Council’s report on quantum technologies, which makes the UK the first nation in the world to set out its regulatory approach for this technology.
We also invite techUK members to share their insights on regulatory areas tied to technological innovation for upcoming projects. If there's a particular aspect you'd like the Regulatory Horizons Council to explore, kindly fill out this form.
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Rory joined techUK in June 2023 after three years in the Civil Service on its Fast Stream leadership development programme.
During this time, Rory worked on the Government's response to Covid-19 (NHS Test & Trace), school funding strategy (Department for Education) and international climate and nature policy (Cabinet Office). He also tackled the social care crisis whilst on secondment to techUK's Health and Social Care programme in 2022.
Before this, Rory worked in the House of Commons and House of Lords alongside completing degrees in Political Economy and Global Politics.
Today, Rory leads techUK's emerging technologies activity across everything from immersive, web3, AI and robotics to space, gaming & metaverse.
This involves co-running techUK's flagship Innovation campaign, managing four series (including the 'Meet the Innovators' interview series), and launching 4-6-month 'sprint campaigns' on transformative technologies and sectors.
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- [email protected]
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Rory Daniels
Rory joined techUK in June 2023 after three years in the Civil Service on its Fast Stream leadership development programme.
During this time, Rory worked on the Government's response to Covid-19 (NHS Test & Trace), school funding strategy (Department for Education) and international climate and nature policy (Cabinet Office). He also tackled the social care crisis whilst on secondment to techUK's Health and Social Care programme in 2022.
Before this, Rory worked in the House of Commons and House of Lords alongside completing degrees in Political Economy and Global Politics.
Today, Rory leads techUK's emerging technologies activity across everything from immersive, web3, AI and robotics to space, gaming & metaverse.
This involves co-running techUK's flagship Innovation campaign, managing four series (including the 'Meet the Innovators' interview series), and launching 4-6-month 'sprint campaigns' on transformative technologies and sectors.
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- [email protected]
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Rory joined techUK in June 2023 after three years in the Civil Service on its Fast Stream leadership development programme.