Pénélope Seguin, Gabriela Manrique Rueda and Geneviève Baril, Maison de l’innovation sociale et Cité-ID Living Lab (ENAP)
Regulation as a lever for transition
The Laboratoire d’innovation civique pour l’expérimentation réglementaire—LICER—is a civic innovation laboratory for regulatory experimentation that is run by the Maison de l’innovation sociale (MIS) in collaboration with the Cité-ID LivingLab of the École nationale d’administration publique (ENAP) and Dark Matter Labs.
The lab was born out of the City of Montréal’s winning proposal to the Smart Cities Challenge, a competition organized by Infrastructure Canada that invited municipalities, local or regional governments and Aboriginal communities to adopt a smart city approach to improving the lives of their residents through innovation, data and connected technologies (Infrastructure Canada, 2020). Today, LICER is part of the Montréal en commun innovation community led by the Laboratoire d’innovation urbaine de Montréal (LIUM).
LICER aims to support the deployment of innovative transition practices that face regulatory roadblocks. Its aim is to bring together community organizations, municipal governments and citizens around collective action to co-produce local and municipal regulatory frameworks in support of these practices. To that end, it first addresses the existing tensions between innovation and regulation, using the perspectives of both those in charge of innovation projects and the public administrators responsible for formulating and applying regulations. It then explores the potential of co-production approaches to support the evolution and adaptation of municipal regulations, and to increase multi-stakeholder participation in regulatory formulation, implementation and evaluation processes.
State of the scientific literature on the modality of action studied
The issue of regulatory adaptation in support of the ecological transition is part of the fight against climate change and the adaptation of cities to this new reality. Half the world’s population lives in urban spaces which, generating around eighty percent of carbon emissions (Yigitcanlar et al., 2019), are exposed to growing socio-ecological risks such as environmental disasters, natural degradation and the loss of biodiversity and ecosystems (IPCC, 2022). These challenges are pressing cities to engage in the ecological transition, reduce social inequalities and protect vulnerable populations. It is in this context that “smart” cities have emerged (Artyushina, 2020), which aim to collect, visualize and analyze data from different sectors (environment, health, energy, transport) equipped with new technologies, in order to anticipate risks (Kandt and Batty, 2021) and make informed decisions (Leszczynski, 2016). While some cities aspire to economic and sustainable development, others focus on infrastructure efficiency, improving the population’s quality of life, government efficiency or innovation and economic development (see Lee et al., 2014; Nesti, 2020; Noori et al., 2021; Paskaleva et al., 2017; Sadowski and Maalsen, 2020; Zvolska et al., 2019). In the case of Montréal en commun, the aim is to develop neighbourhood-scale innovation projects that promote food security, sustainable mobility and social inclusion (Infrastructure Canada, 2020). The program engages citizens in the implementation of these projects, moving toward participatory and collaborative modes of governance.
According to Ansell and Gash (2008), governance refers to the rules and ways of doing things that guide collective decision-making by networks of public and private players through deliberative processes of communication and collaboration. The scientific literature on smart city governance argues that governance capacity building is an important element of data-driven public value creation to achieve the goals of sustainability, urban resilience, equity and justice (Leighton, 2019; Pereira et al., 2017; Yigitcanlar et al., 2019). However, one of the main obstacles to innovation and the creation of public value in the context of the ecological transition at the urban scale is the existence of regulations that are rigid, static, inflexible and ill-suited to sustainable solutions and the transformation of living environments (Bennear and Wiener, 2019; LICER, 2021). One reason for the difficulty of implementing various transition innovations is a regulatory framework that is both too vague and too restrictive (Markus and Savini, 2016).
The term regulatory framework refers to the explicit, formal rules that constrain behaviour and organize interactions. It also includes certain normative dimensions that confer values and expectations in relation to roles, obligations, rights and responsibilities (Geels, 2011). As for innovation, and more specifically social innovation, this is “a new idea, approach or intervention […] that responds more adequately and sustainably than existing solutions to a well-defined social need” (RQIS, 2021; own translation). It is a solution that has “found a taker within an institution, organization or community and that produces a measurable benefit for the community [and] constitutes, in its inherent creativity, a break with the existing” (RQIS, 2021; own translation). In this context, it becomes imperative to review the traditional regulatory approach in order to introduce more agility. Regulatory experimentation is an adaptive approach to regulation that promotes innovation. It can be defined as the temporary removal of regulatory barriers to guide the development of future regulations, be they regulatory revisions or new regulations (Schittekatte et al., 2021). Experimentation allows rules to be temporarily overridden and permits normally prohibited practices, comprising the basis for transforming regulatory frameworks through the integration of learnings over time (Schittekatte et al., 2021). Adaptive regulation takes a serial, partial and sequential approach to decision-making, monitored and revised on an ongoing basis (Bennear and Wiener, 2019). This approach shapes regulatory change by reducing information asymmetry between regulators and innovation project developers, generating evidence from the implementation of shorter, more flexible mechanisms and processes that encourage dialogue between these developers and enable multiple solutions to be tested and compared. In turn, this reduces risk, error and frustration (Bennear and Wiener, 2019; Schittekatte et al., 2021).
Case, method and original research data
Credit : Maxime Lapostolle
An initial series of activities carried out by LICER helped identify the constraints and opportunities associated with the usual practices of regulatory formulation, design, implementation and enforcement from an ecological transition perspective. A review of the grey literature on the emerging practice of regulatory innovation, nine in-depth case studies and five semi-structured interviews with innovation project leaders in the international regulatory sphere enabled us to identify the various existing approaches to regulatory innovation.
LICER then turned its attention to a number of specific problems encountered by joint Montreal projects. Collaborations were concluded with the Laboratoire d’agriculture urbaine (AU/LAB) and with Solon, both of which were facing regulatory bottlenecks surrounding new urban agriculture and sustainable mobility practices, as well as regulatory bottlenecks surrounding the occupation of the public domain. The first step in this new phase of collaborative research was to deepen our understanding of the projects’ objectives and the regulatory blockages anticipated or encountered during implementation. To that end, we engaged in a series of workshops led by LICER and a review of municipal policies and by-laws on the types of practices and occupations targeted.
Six semi-structured interviews, each lasting between 60 and 90 minutes, were then conducted with members of the municipal government involved in land use planning and the design and application of regulations in the boroughs targeted for project implementation. These interviews made it possible to document the needs and challenges encountered by civil servants in adapting regulations to innovations and, more broadly, to ecological transition objectives.
The issues and needs identified through all these activities guided the development of LICER’s regulatory experimentation approach, which is presented in the following section.
Results
The tension between innovation and regulation
While the international initiatives identified by LICER vary in terms of their objectives, all involve reflection on the evolution of regulatory content and the processes by which this content is formulated and applied, with a view to better accommodating innovation. The first category of approaches identified aims to make complex legislative frameworks easier to navigate, or to make potential obstacles to the deployment of innovative initiatives more visible. The aim is to popularize regulatory content and associated processes (e.g., permit applications) in order to empower innovators. A second category of approaches identified concerns the formalization of experimentation mechanisms to test the integration of new practices under real conditions. This experimentation aims to generate evidence that can guide the design or revision of a regulatory framework in support of the proposed solution or, conversely, guide the adaptation of proposed solutions to the relevant regulatory frameworks in force. Finally, a third category of approaches identified seeks to develop new mechanisms for citizen participation to be incorporated into existing regulatory review and adoption processes. Through the participation of civil society, these mechanisms aim to increase the legitimacy and relevance of the regulations produced. They enable broader expertise to contribute (e.g., specialists in the practices being regulated), and take into account the application dimensions of the regulations from the ideation and formulation phase onward (e.g., are the regulations functional, useful, understandable).
Factors blocking and facilitating the deployment of innovative initiatives in transition-related sectors
Montréal en commun partners are committed to promoting certain urban and social transformations aimed at improving living environments and combating climate change. In the case of the AU/LAB, the aim is to democratize greenhouse culture on a neighbourhood scale, with a collective and sustainable perspective.
The complexity of current legislative and regulatory frameworks, and their lack of flexibility and adaptability, are a major obstacle to the development of such innovative projects. The Act respecting land use planning and development, which divides the territory into zones and determines which uses and activities are authorized there, is a particular constraint on Montréal en commun projects. For example, zoning codes are one of the main barriers to the development of urban agriculture at the neighbourhood level. Occupation of the public domain is also constrained by regulatory parameters that limit the potential for sustaining initiatives.
There are, however, some discretionary urban planning by-laws that mitigate regulatory rigidity. The conditional use by-law, for example, authorizes the implementation of uses that are acceptable to the population and compatible with the environment, without modifying the regulations (MAMH, 2022). These provisions make it possible to avoid regulatory amendment, a cumbersome and administratively complex procedure. However, municipal discretion remains limited and cannot be used to circumvent existing regulations.
Beyond these considerations, municipal governments are often confronted with risk management issues that limit their ability to act. In a context of innovation, it is difficult for those in charge of formulating regulations to determine precisely how to frame new practices and to anticipate the various issues that could emerge during implementation. The risk of complaints and lawsuits therefore limits the ability to support structuring changes. In this respect, citizens can indirectly encourage a process of regulatory change by exerting pressure on the municipal government to implement changes. Conversely, the public can also oppose proposed changes. Citizens, like elected officials, are therefore fundamental levers in the adoption of policies, the regulatory amendment process and the borough’s support for innovative projects. However, citizens remain largely excluded from the formal processes of ideation and formulation of regulations; their role is restricted to certain public consultations where they are called upon to accept or reject a regulatory proposal.
The relevance of experimentation in a regulatory context
The complexity and rigidity of current frameworks, and the climate of uncertainty in which levels of the municipal government are forced to navigate, call for a rethinking of the ways in which regulations are formulated, applied and evaluated in the context of transition.
Experimentation makes it possible to test new practices in real-life conditions. In response to an initial problem, experimentation can generate evidence and learning to guide decision-making in a regulatory context. Risk management is a key dimension of experimentation, since it involves testing a change on a small scale in a controlled environment, involving various stakeholders. In the context of LICER, the data generated by experimentation is intended to inform all stakeholders about the appropriate framework and the scaling-up of practices. Indeed, the lessons learned can be transferred from one district to another, increasing the impact of the solutions tested.
For LICER, it is crucial that experimentation is carried out jointly with the municipal government (responsible for formulating and applying regulations) and innovative project managers (who promote certain urban and social transformations), alongside the collaboration of citizens. The involvement of different stakeholders (city council members, civil servants, innovators, etc.) as co-producers of experimentation in a regulatory context would enable a deeper understanding of the regulatory issues facing innovation projects as well as the general needs and objectives pursued. This would then provide an opportunity to co-design an experiment that would meet specific common learning objectives and reflect an equitable sharing of roles and responsibilities.
As mentioned above, citizens are largely excluded from the ideation and formulation of regulations. Experimentation in real-life conditions would make it possible to assess the level of public support for the proposed practices, and thus increase the impact of these potential solutions. It would also allow engagement with stakeholders who are initially resistant to change and innovation. However, physical and systemic barriers may limit the full participation of certain populations in the participation and co-production mechanisms deployed as part of an adaptive regulation approach. In particular, the complexity and opacity of regulation are major barriers to accessible and inclusive dialogue on regulatory change in transition-related sectors. A future LICER workstream to be deployed in 2023‒2024 will focus on the theme of inclusion and on forms of citizen participation in the regulatory innovation process that are more supportive of meeting the public interest. Indeed, the approach implemented and documented by LICER is part of a broader movement to transform public governance, and aims to strengthen the ability of citizens to participate in decision-making concerning the improvement of living environments.
Conclusion
Credit: Maison de l’innovation sociale (www.mis.quebec)
In the context of transition, emerging practices in land use planning andoccupation are sometimes held back by existing regulations, either because of the content of the regulations, or because of the administrative procedures surrounding their interpretation or application. Existing frameworks need to be reviewed, with the aim of adapting and responding to the need for change while taking care to ensure the relevance of new frameworks. Among the needs expressed within the municipal government is the ability to test and evaluate the integration of new practices.
Experimentation opens up an intermediary path between the status quo (maintaining and applying existing regulations) and change (e.g., authorizing uses that were previously prohibited). Involving a multitude of stakeholders in the design, implementation and evaluation of experiments contributes to their relevance and efficiency, as well as to the transparency and credibility of the processes behind them, with a view to ultimately arriving at proven solutions likely to produce a strong impact.
The approach proposed by LICER is currently being tested in collaboration with AU/LAB and its partner, Carrefour solidaire Centre communautaire d’alimentation. Three passive solar greenhouses are being installed in public spaces to test the potential for integrating greenhouses into the street environment on a permanent basis. A second experiment is also in the initiation phase in the Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough, as part of the collaboration established with Solon around citizen appropriation of public spaces. The results and lessons learned from these initiatives will be published by LICER at the end of 2022 and 2023.
To cite this article
Seguin, P., Manrique Rueda, G., Baril, G. (2022). LICER, a civic innovation lab for regulatory experimentation. In Cities, Climate and Inequalities Collection. VRM – Villes Régions Monde. https://www.vrm.ca/le-laboratoire-dinnovation-civique-pour-lexperimentation-reglementaire-licer-2
