In an era of astonishing technological innovation, how should we think about modernizing regulation?

For all of their disagreements, Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump both recognized the risk that incumbent regulatory programs might unintentionally burden or brake valuable technological innovation. In Executive Order 13563, President Obama paid special attention to the need to “promote innovation,” part of his broader call for “A 21st Century Regulatory System.” Similarly, President Trump has emphasized the need space for technological innovation, as seen in his creation of a new White House Office of American Innovation, and in the Treasury Department’s call for a light-touch regulatory approach for FinTech.

As scholars, how should we think about the relationship between regulation and technological innovation — both in calibrating regulations that affect innovation, and in using technological innovation to modernize regulation itself?

To advance the study and discussion of these questions, the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State, at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, is calling for paper proposals under the broad theme of “Technology, Innovation, and Regulation.” We welcome “big picture” proposals, and we also welcome more narrowly tailored papers focusing on specific issues, such as (in no particular order):

• Artificial Intelligence
• FinTech
• Cryptocurrencies
• Blockchain
• “Big Data”
• Algorithms
• Algorithmic Trading
• “Search Neutrality”
• Virtual Reality / Augmented Reality
• Autonomous Vehicles
• Antitrust and “Big Tech” Companies
• Federalism and “Big Tech” Companies
• “Regulatory Hacking”
• “Regulatory Sandboxes”

Authors will present preliminary summaries at a “research roundtable” discussion on April 4–5, at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, in Arlington, Virginia.

Seven months later, full drafts will be published online and discussed at a public policy conference on November 15, again at the Scalia Law School.

Please send proposals to me at awhite36 [at] gmu [dot] edu. Papers will be accepted on a rolling basis. The Gray Center happily offers a significant honorarium for all accepted papers. Authors retain full control over eventual submission of their papers for publication in legal journals; the Gray Center does not have any publication requirements, beyond the release of the conference draft in the Center’s working paper series.

Update, Feb. 18: Thank you for your interest; the slate of papers has been filled.