Exploring the pathways: Regulatory experiments for Sustainable Development – an interdisciplinary approach

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations provide normative orientation for many national and regional governments as well as actors from industry and oth-er parts of the civil society. There is growing consensus that the corresponding transformation processes needed – e.g. in the field of production and consumption patterns (SDG 12) – have to be fostered by a corresponding institutional framework. Properly designed regulatory experiments that generate a learning system for all actors involved may be an important building block. Based on an interdisciplinary approach, we develop an over-view of the various terminologies for regulatory experimentation currently discussed in the social sciences, derive common criteria for regulatory experimentation in reflexive governance structures and conclude in presenting a conceptual framework for analysing empirical studies of regulatory experiments.