About the Network

The Network began in 2001 when a proposal from the Research School of Social Sciences to establish a ‘virtual’ network of regulatory scholars won strategic development funding from the ANU. In the same year, the Faculty of Law also won complementary development funding from the Vice-Chancellor’s Fund for Excellence. Then in 2003 the Faculty of Economics and Commerce successfully bid for funding from the Utilities Regulators’ Forum to establish the Australian Centre for Regulatory Economics. In 2004 the Centre for Health Stewardship in the new Faculty of Medicine joined RegNet. In three years, four separate academic units of the ANU began teaching and research programs in regulation.

In 2007, the new priority became building the Network in the College of Asia and the Pacific. The Network now spans the globe through its membership. Members belong to formal research centres and institutions as well as participating as individuals. Members are practitioners, policy makers and academics from universities, government and non-governmental organizations, business and industry.

Activities include service to government committees and reviews, presentations and addresses to community organizations and practitioner focused conferences, as well as taking on advisory roles in public sector or non-government organizations. These activities are often done on a team basis, and provide opportunities to observe and learn how to bridge the academic/practitioner divide and turn high quality academic scholarship into practical interventions and effective policy.

As a Network, RegNet continues to make highly innovative contributions to theory as well as empirical and policy contributions that have reshaped the thinking of Australian and international governments, organizations, businesses and NGOs.

The Network is governed by the Board of Management, chaired by Professor Peter Grabosky, and receives ongoing guidance from the Board of Advisory Fellows.