From autonomous vehicles to biotechnologies, technological breakthroughs across the digital, biological and physical spheres are heralding a Fourth Industrial Revolution. Governed well, these innovations can help power economic growth and address the world’s most pressing social and environmental challenges.

But regulation can struggle to keep pace with innovation, hindering the introduction of new ideas, products and business models, while leaving citizens with outdated protections. A more agile, flexible approach to regulation is needed in order to seize the potential of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to change lives for the better.

This guide provides regulators with a range of techniques they can employ to help respond in a more agile way to innovation and disruption. It demystifies what regulatory sandboxes, challenges and one-stop shops really are and explores the trade-offs between different regulatory strategies. It includes case studies from leading regulators on how to apply these techniques in practice and ideas on how to mainstream these approaches across the whole of government.