Each record describes something a country built that the indicators miss. The source provides the number; the mechanism is our interpretation.
Scores describe outcomes. These records describe how a country acted, what it needed and what happened. 204 of 204 records include a mechanism. They do not affect scores.
The United Kingdom's financial regulator built the first regulatory sandbox in 2016, and by the end of 2022 had accepted 168 firms and products to test with real customers under supervision.
The regulator wrote a bounded testing regime: a firm without full authorisation can trial a product on real customers for a fixed period, with disclosure requirements and an exit plan, while the regulator watches from inside.
Preconditions
A single conduct regulator with statutory room to waive its own rules
A fintech sector dense enough to fill cohorts
Political cover for a regulator explicitly helping firms it will later police
Where it travelled: The sandbox is Britain's most copied regulatory export, and several dozen jurisdictions now run one. Most copies keep the name and drop the supervisory intensity that makes it work.
Limits: The count is the regulator reporting on its own programme, and acceptance is not success: the FCA does not publish how many tests led to authorisation, funding or a product that survived. One hundred and sixty-eight firms over seven years is small next to the sector, so the number evidences that the mechanism runs, not that it moves the industry.
🇮🇱Israelsince 1993delivered and closedbears on Venture capital investment
Israel put 100 million dollars of public money into ten hybrid venture funds from 1993, with foreign partners and a buy-out option, and by 2002 the country had 131 venture funds with around 10 billion dollars under management.
The state capitalised new private funds rather than picking companies, required each fund to bring a foreign venture firm as partner, and sold the government's stake cheaply to the private partners once a fund worked, so the subsidy was the upside, and it expired by design.
Preconditions
A stock of investable technology and founders already present
Foreign venture firms willing to teach the craft for cheap equity
A government able to exit a working programme instead of scaling it
Where it travelled: Yozma is the most copied venture policy in the world, and most copies fail on the same two points: no credible foreign-partner requirement, and no willingness to sell the state's stake at the moment of success.
Limits: Attribution is the weak joint: the ten funds were one cause among several, alongside a million-person skilled immigration wave, military technology spillovers and a US stock market that wanted Israeli listings, and the OECD paper credits Yozma as catalyst rather than cause. The 10 billion figure is capital under management, not investment made or returns earned, and roughly 70 percent of it was foreign money. The programme was deliberately closed once private capital led, which is why the status is concluded.
🇧🇷Brazilsince 2013still operatingbears on Business share of R&D
Created in 2013, EMBRAPII connects companies to public and private research units through shared-risk funding, and it contracted a record 811 new industrial research projects in 2025.
811 projects, new projects contracted in the year, 2025. EMBRAPII, 2025 results, retrieved 2026-08-29.
The move, and what it needed
Public funding follows an industry's defined technical problem into a research unit, sharing early risk while leaving the company and researchers responsible for solving a concrete challenge.
Preconditions
Research units with equipment and technical depth ready to work with firms
Companies able to define a problem and contribute a financial counterpart
A funding body with enough flexibility to contract applied work faster than ordinary grants
Limits: Project counts show the throughput of a funding network, not the commercial value, technical success or additionality of the research. EMBRAPII's own results report the programme's activity, and projects vary widely in scale and maturity.
🇰🇷South Koreasince 2019still operatingbears on Regulatory sandbox activity
South Korea expanded its regulatory-sandbox system from ICT and industrial-convergence fields in January 2019 to eight sectoral regimes by 2024, adding finance, regulatory-free zones, smart cities, R&D zones, mobility and circular economy testing.
South Korea created a common regulatory-sandbox architecture with temporary permits, demonstration exemptions and rapid regulatory confirmation, then added sector-specific tracks and dedicated support bodies so smaller firms could test products without negotiating every rule from scratch.
Preconditions
A legal framework that allows time-, place- and scale-limited exemptions while retaining safety controls
Specialist ministries and intake bodies able to assess experiments across finance, mobility, ICT and industrial sectors
A route from a successful test to regulatory revision, licensing or procurement rather than leaving pilots stranded
Where it travelled: Sandbox systems travel when experimentation, safeguards and rule-change pathways are designed together; multiplying sector labels without review capacity creates a catalogue rather than a learning system.
Limits: The regime count shows institutional breadth, not the number of firms approved, experiments completed, commercial products launched, safety outcomes or permanent rule changes. The government portal describes the system's design and expansion but does not independently evaluate whether each sectoral track is active at the same intensity or produces net social benefit.
🇸🇬Singaporesince 2016still operatingbears on Regulatory sandbox activity
Singapore's Monetary Authority operates three FinTech Regulatory Sandbox variants—Sandbox, Sandbox Express and Sandbox Plus—giving firms distinct routes to test regulated products with real customers under defined safeguards.
MAS made experimentation a staged regulatory service: firms needing tailored controls use the original sandbox, lower-risk activities can use Sandbox Express, and promising proposals can receive a streamlined route with support. Each variant keeps a live test bounded while giving the regulator evidence before a full licence.
Preconditions
A financial regulator with authority to vary requirements temporarily and monitor live customer activity
Clear entry, boundary and exit criteria so a sandbox does not become indefinite unlicensed operation
A dense financial and technology ecosystem in which tested products can find counterparties, capital and a path to licensing
Where it travelled: Regulatory sandboxes travel best as a portfolio matched to risk: one universal process can be too slow for low-risk tests and too loose for products that move real money.
Limits: Counting three sandbox routes shows regulatory design and breadth, not applications received, firms graduating to full licences, customer protection, failure rates or the cost of supervision. The EDB account is an official ecosystem description and includes illustrative company cases rather than an independent evaluation of all experiments.
🇬🇧United Kingdomsince 2018still operatingbears on Venture capital investment
The British Business Bank reported that government-owned British Patient Capital had committed £2.287 billion through 80 fund commitments, 10 co-investments and 18 Future Fund deals by 31 March 2024, with an underlying portfolio of 1,350 companies.
The UK used a public, long-horizon investment platform to anchor private funds, make selected co-investments and keep capital flowing into innovative companies that can be underserved by shorter-horizon finance. A fund-manager network spreads sourcing and specialist judgement beyond the state balance sheet.
Preconditions
A public investment institution with a mandate, capital and governance that can tolerate long time horizons
Private fund managers and co-investors able to select, price and support high-growth firms
A pipeline of investable companies and follow-on capital so an anchor commitment can compound rather than stand alone
Where it travelled: Public venture catalysts travel when they crowd in capable private managers and preserve commercial decision-making; a state fund without deal flow, follow-on finance or disciplined governance can become a subsidy ledger rather than a capital market.
Limits: Commitments, assets and portfolio-company counts are administrative programme totals, not venture capital as a share of GDP, additionality, exits, jobs or causal economic impact. The portfolio includes third-party fund capital and co-investments, and the figures are reported by the government-owned delivery institution rather than independently evaluating what would have happened without it.
🇬🇧United Kingdomsince 2014still operatingbears on University spinouts
UK Research and Innovation's ICURe impact report says spinout companies from the programme secured £326 million in investment funding and created more than 1,400 jobs from 2014 onward, after research teams were trained and funded to test markets before deciding whether to spin out.
ICURe gives research teams funding, coaching and a disciplined market-discovery period in which they conduct more than 100 customer interviews before a university-backed go/no-go decision. Teams advised to spin out can then apply for follow-on funding, turning technology-transfer work into an investable proposition rather than treating a patent as a company.
Preconditions
Universities and research institutes with discoveries, translational staff and authority to support commercial routes
Researchers willing to test a problem with users and founders able to lead a company after the discovery phase
Follow-on grants, investors and technology-transfer offices that can carry a validated opportunity beyond the programme
Where it travelled: Spinout pipelines travel when market discovery, founder formation and follow-on capital are designed as one chain; a grant or patent alone does not create the commercial capabilities and decisions needed for a durable firm.
Limits: The impact report's cumulative investment and job figures cover teams supported by ICURe and do not show the full spinout population, survival, profitability, quality of jobs, counterfactual or the programme's independent contribution. They are programme impact estimates, not a national spinout rate or a guarantee that every participating discovery should become a company.
🇬🇧United Kingdomsince 1981still operatingbears on Business share of R&D
The Office for National Statistics reported that UK businesses performed £50.0 billion of R&D in 2023, 69% of the country's £72.6 billion gross domestic R&D total.
The UK combines a large private R&D base with public research funding and tax support, leaving firms as the main performers of national R&D while universities and government supply complementary research and talent. The sector mix gives commercial problems a route into the research system, but it also makes the national portfolio sensitive to corporate concentration and cycles.
Preconditions
Firms with the cash flow, engineering talent and appropriable returns needed to sustain R&D beyond a single grant
Universities and public laboratories that train researchers and can collaborate with or supply firms
Stable measurement, intellectual-property rules and public co-funding that make long-horizon private research investable
Where it travelled: A business-led R&D mix travels when private firms have reasons to keep investing and public institutions fill the basic-research and talent gaps; a high share alone can also reflect a few concentrated corporate laboratories.
Limits: The 69% share is a national R&D composition measure, not evidence that business research is basic, additional, productive or evenly distributed across firms and regions. ONS changed the business-survey methods for 2022, so the long historical series needs care; the figures measure R&D performed in UK organisations regardless of the ultimate owner's country.
🇵🇹Portugalsince 2012still operatingbears on Venture capital investment
Portugal Ventures, the public venture-capital company in the Banco Português de Fomento group, reports €233.2 million invested in 256 new companies since 2012 and €283 million under management.
A state-backed investor supplies pre-seed, seed and Series A capital, often alongside private investors, using staged minority investments and portfolio support to bridge companies that are too early for ordinary bank finance.
Preconditions
A pipeline of founders and research-derived firms large enough to fill investment rounds
Investment professionals with authority to make commercial decisions inside a public mandate
Follow-on private capital and exit markets so public money can recycle rather than become permanent subsidy
Where it travelled: Public venture capital travels when it crowds in follow-on investors and accepts portfolio risk transparently; a state fund that only replaces missing private money can preserve firms without building a market.
Limits: These are company-reported cumulative portfolio figures, not venture-capital investment as a share of GDP, additionality, exits, survival, jobs or a counterfactual. The homepage does not give a full reference-year methodology, and the totals can include private co-investment effects as well as Portugal Ventures' own capital.