Regulatory Experimentation Expense Fund

Home	Regulatory Sandbox	Regulatory Experimentation	REEF	RCF	Projects	RegTech Forum	Tools

We extend our heartfelt gratitude for the overwhelming interest in REEF. As of October 17, 2024, we have concluded accepting Expressions of Interest (EOIs) and are no longer receiving submissions.

Project Eligibility

The Regulatory Experimentation Expense Fund (REEF) supports federal regulators in innovating or facilitating innovation in the marketplace by experimenting with:

Innovative approaches to any stage of the regulatory lifecycle
Market innovations (e.g., new products, business models, and services)

All stages of regulatory experimentation are supported, including:

Determining if an experiment is the right approach
Developing a regulatory experiment
Conducting a regulatory experiment

New this year: Outcomes-based initiatives, like innovation challenges, are tools that can support your regulatory experimentation efforts. Consider Impact Canada as a partner in your expression of interest.

The REEF is open to all Government of Canada regulators.

What can the REEF offer?

Regulators can receive:

Financial Support

The total funding envelope is $1,400,000 per fiscal year. This amount represents the overall budget available to support multiple projects across potentially multiple fiscal years. Funding will be allocated to cover expenditures considered necessary to support the purposes of proposed regulatory experiments or pre-experiments. Individual project budgets will vary based on their scope and needs, within the constraints of this total funding envelope.
- The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat reserves the right to make the final determination on eligible expenditures

Important Update: Due to multiple ongoing multi-year projects, funding for the new round of REEF will be approximately $400K. This limited budget will be allocated to proposals that best align with Government of Canada priorities. Funds can support both project implementation and administration costs. Early consultation is recommended to ensure alignment with current funding availability and priorities.

Note: Funds cannot be used to award a financial prize for an Impact Canada challenge prize. Prize awards require grants and contributions from the applicant.

Technical Support

Expert advice and guidance to help navigate your specific regulatory context

Eligibility Criteria

To be eligible for the REEF, proposed regulatory projects must meet the following criteria:

Regulatory Experimentation: The project must be about regulatory experimentation, either:

a. Conducting a regulatory experiment, or

b. Supporting pre-experimentation activities (developing an experiment or determining if experimentation is appropriate)

Problem or Opportunity: The project must address at least one of the following:

A defined industry need
A technological challenge
A market opportunity

Innovation: The project must support innovation in regulatory approaches or in the marketplace.

Note: For an Impact Canada challenge prize:

The proposed project does not need to be an experiment
Eligibility criterion: Applicants must outline how their challenge will inform regulatory development.

Webinar: Regulatory Innovation Tools (December 13, 2023)

For further insight into the eligibility criteria and examples of successful projects, please watch the webinar on Regulatory Innovation Tools from December 13, 2023. This webinar provides valuable information on how to meet the criteria and enhance your proposal.

Click to access presentation materials:Regulatory Innovation Tools Webinar Deck

The Process

	Step	Description
1.	Informal Consultation (ongoing)	Before submitting an EOI, consult with the CRI to confirm project eligibility. Email: cri-cir@tbs-sct.gc.ca Note: For challenge prize projects, please mention this in your email.
2.	Expression of Interest (a month)	Submit an Expression of Interest (EOI) by October 16, 2024. EOIs should be brief and take only a few hours to complete Email submissions to: cri-cir@tbs-sct.gc.ca
3.	Expression of Interest Assessment (a month)	After the submission deadline, there will be a review period where: The CRI team will provide feedback on submitted EOIs, applicants may be asked to update or clarify aspects of their EOI. This iterative process ensures all EOIs are as strong as possible before final assessment When there are many high-quality Expressions of Interest (EOIs), the CRI will consult the SC to prioritize those that: Foster innovation applicable across multiple sectors Align with key government initiatives
4.	Proposal Submission (around four months)	Successful EOI applicants invited to complete a full proposal Applicants must obtain support from Director General or above CRI supports throughout the process Use the Regulators' Experimentation Toolkit
5.	Funding Decision	For proposal assessment, the Steering Committee (SC) will: Eligibility: Ensure all proposals meet the basic requirements for consideration. Assessment: Eligible applications will be assessed and ranked based on: Public Benefits: Extent to which Canadians will benefit from the experiment's learnings Viability: Likelihood of delivering sought learnings, including risk assessment and mitigation Alignment with the Fund Objective: How well the proposal aligns with the overall goals of the funding initiative Funding Decision Funding available from April 2025 MOU completion required Regular reporting needed (financial forecast, progress, and final reports)
6.	Memorandum of Understanding	CRI works with the applicant to develop and finalize an MOU MOU outlines conditions of funding, reporting requirements, and committed funds
7.	Reporting	1. Regular Reporting Applicants must submit financial forecasts and progress reports to CRI as outlined in the MOU. This ensures transparency and tracks the project's status and use of funds. 2. Final Report At the end of the project, provide a final report summarizing the key learnings and outcomes.
8.	Lessons Learned and Knowledge Sharing	CRI organizes opportunities to share and discuss learnings with interested audiences CRI prepares and publishes a report summarizing key lessons learned from regulatory experiments Presentations may be given to raise awareness, with project lead verification for any project details

Application Documents

Document	Description
Regulators' Experimentation Toolkit	Toolkit for regulatory experiments and sandboxes
Expression of Interest (EOI) Template	Template for submitting your initial interest
Proposal Template	Template for full project proposal

Ongoing Projects

Department/Agency	Project Title	Project Description
Transport Canada (TC)	Light Sport Aircraft	Transport Canada is conducting a regulatory experiment to assess the suitability of Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) for use in flight training. The project aims to evaluate LSA certified by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency in Canadian flight training environments. Working with selected flight schools, Transport Canada will gather data on aircraft performance, reliability, and training quality. The experiment seeks to inform potential updates to regulations, potentially allowing more modern and environmentally friendly aircraft options for pilot training while maintaining safety standards.
Health Canada (HC)	Advanced Therapeutic Products Framework for CAR-T Products	Health Canada is developing a regulatory sandbox for Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy products manufactured at the point of care. This experiment aims to test a co-creation process for developing tailored regulatory requirements under Health Canada's Advanced Therapeutic Products pathway. The project will involve collaboration with various stakeholders to design market access authorization requirements for these innovative cancer treatments. The goal is to create an adaptive regulatory framework that maintains safety standards while facilitating faster access to new therapies.
Canada Energy Regulator (CER)	Assessing Compliance of Potential New Requirements to Prevent and Address Impacts to Indigenous Rights and Interests: A Regulatory Experiment	The Canada Energy Regulator (CER) is conducting a regulatory experiment to develop and test new requirements for preventing and addressing impacts to Indigenous rights and interests related to energy infrastructure projects. The experiment aims to enhance Indigenous involvement in compliance verification and oversight processes. Using a co-creation approach with Indigenous communities and other stakeholders, the CER will develop tailored regulatory requirements and test a joint compliance verification process. The project seeks to strengthen measures to protect Indigenous rights while informing updates to CER's regulatory framework.
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA)	Facilitating Industry Collaboration to Streamline Regulatory Pathways for Novel Fertilizers	Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) in collaboration with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), aims to streamline regulatory pathways for novel fertilizers in Canada. The project will test an industry-developed prioritization matrix to identify key ingredients for potential exemption from registration, potentially reducing the backlog of premarket applications. It will evaluate the effectiveness of allocating CFIA resources towards expanding the List of Materials (LOM) and explore industry collaboration in prioritizing materials and developing application packages. By comparing the costs and efficiency of adding materials to the LOM versus reviewing individual registration applications, the project seeks to inform strategies for reducing regulatory burdens while maintaining safety standards. This approach could lead to faster market access for novel fertilizers, supporting agricultural productivity and environmental sustainability in Canada.
Transport Canada (TC)	Enabling Commercial Space Launch in Canada	Transport Canada is taking action to enable commercial space launch activities in Canada following Cabinet direction. TC has developed an interim regulatory regime leveraging the limited authorities at their disposal to authorize launches starting in 2025-2026. The interim regime is mostly based in policy and TC propose to run the interim regime as a sandbox to test the policy requirements and adjust them as they learn from their experience to improve the interim regime over time and leverage the learnings to develop a permanent regulatory framework for commercial space launch. TC’s current authorities are limited to authorizing launches and the sandbox will test TC’s launch authorization requirements, review process and oversight approach.
Transport Canada (TC)	Establishing a Battery Electric and Hydrogen-Powered Locomotive Regulatory Sandbox (in support of Rail Safety and Decarbonization)	Transport Canada is working toward the development of a regulatory regime for hydrogen and battery-powered locomotives. TC is leading a project to produce Canadian Standards that will form the basis of a future regulatory regime. TC is proposing to use a regulatory sandbox to test the standards requirements in real world operations with participating companies and use the learnings to improve the standard and inform how the standard can be used to support the development of regulations. Rail companies participating in the sandbox would take steps to comply with the standards’ requirements and TC would work with companies and TC inspectors to get feedback on the standards burden, inspection outcomes, and impact on innovation.
View list of completed projects and experimentation reports

Questions?

If you have any questions, please contact the CRI at: cri-cir@tbs-sct.gc.ca.