This multi-year project – which includes an expanding collaboration network of regulatory agencies, companies, and academic researchers – has been inspired by the scientific and commercial innovation that followed the collective effort to code the human genome.
The project aims to provide an open-source infrastructure for all countries, particularly in developing regions, to have the same digital capabilities as advanced economies to identify regulatory obligations around the world. This is particularly important as consumers have increasingly adopted digital financial services, which has opened up new areas of risk that require regulation.
Drawing on research from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) at Cambridge Judge Business School and the Department of Computer Science and Technology, the project uses machine learning and natural language processing to ‘sequence’ huge amounts of regulatory text, starting with financial regulation. This offers regulators and firms the opportunity to acquire unprecedented capabilities in the development, processing and analysis of regulation.
“The Regulatory Genome Project combines the University’s research with its convening influence to deliver societal and economic impact with the potential to be global, transformational and enduring,” said Professor Eilís Ferran, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Institutional and International Relations at the University of Cambridge.
Image: Red bars
Credit: Tanner Boriack on Unsplash
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge