As mentioned, the project is the first sandbox to be implemented in a Brazilian capital and does so without thematic restrictions, allowing companies from different sectors to participate. Also, based on the testing of innovative solutions, information is collected to help the City Hall understand the innovations, ensuring a regulatory framework that is receptive and compliant with new technologies. In addition, the data generated during the testing period will help public managers in designing public policies of interest to the Municipality.

The policy is still in the implementation phase.

In the formulation of Sandbox.Rio – and above all during the drafting of the decree and the elaboration of the notice and annexes – academia, companies that work with innovation and other internal bodies of the City Hall (such as the Attorney General's Office of the Municipality) were consulted to assess the legal regularity and project potential. At the current stage (implementation), we are still in dialogue with actors such as SENAC, ITS Rio and MIT to form possible agreements in the management and sharing of knowledge.

The project has several layers of beneficiaries. On the companies' side, it assists in the entry of new products and services into the market with greater regulatory security. On the part of the Municipality, it helps in the understanding of the innovations in advance and based on the available data generated in the testing phase. On the citizens' side, there is greater security of coexistence in the urban environment with an innovation now tested in a controlled context.

As it is still in the implementation phase, the concrete results of the policy are still uncertain. However, as the selection of innovative solutions has already been completed, there is an unprecedented potential to generate efficiency gains, reduce costs and entry barriers for innovative products, processes and services in the city's business environment. As revealed by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the UK's financial regulator, the sandbox makes it possible to reduce by up to 3 times the cost of creating and validating a product, service or process and launching it on the market. In addition, the thematic plurality of projects demands specific monitoring and evaluation methodologies. All projects will be accompanied by interactive and simultaneous dashboards. From the reports generated, the data will be analyzed and the final technical report will adopt the most appropriate methodologies for each case, such as cost-benefit analysis, cost-effectiveness, multicriteria, among others.

The central challenge consists in the dialogue with the various actors - public and private - involved in the project. As there is no thematic restriction, proposals from different segments were received. At the same time, the Sandbox regulatory decree determines that any regulatory exemptions to be granted depend on the acquiescence of the body with competence for regulating or supervising the activity. Thus, the Secretariat responsible for the initiative (SMDEIS) had – and still has – the challenge of managing contact with different bodies, conducting thematic meetings and drafting technical documents more adherent to each area.

In addition to the open and constant dialogue with academia, bodies or entities with sectoral regulatory competence and companies that operate in the area of science, technology and innovation, the success of the Sandbox, specifically in terms of execution and the positive results for the local innovation ecosystem, requires the development of strategic planning accompanied by good public governance to make the initiative viable. In addition to these conditions, the analysis of the results collected during the execution of activities, in order to deliver public value for the improvement of sectoral regulation and public policies of the municipality for the promotion of the innovation ecosystem.

Rio asserts itself as the first Brazilian capital to create a regulatory sandbox, which, initially, was structured to receive proposals in a broad way, in order to contemplate not only companies but also research institutes and other entities dedicated to the promotion of technological innovations. The municipality's initiative, already in the implementation phase, has the vocation of being replicated for new cycles, including in delimited modeling for thematic challenges, such as sustainability and energy, which has already attracted interest from partnerships on the part of institutions such as MIT and companies of the sector, as well as for specific areas of the city. Finally, Rio City Hall is also available to assist other municipalities and states in the creation of their own sandboxes, bearing in mind that the terms stipulated by the Decree and Public Call Notice are adaptable to other realities.

The City Hall initiative was able to present a diagnosis of the potential for innovation at the local level, providing opportunities, in a first sandbox cycle, for the broad participation of the entire entrepreneurial ecosystem. The road taken so far to build Sandbox.Rio had challenges of different natures, but it proved that with adequate intersectoral interlocution and dialogue with actors from the innovation environment at the municipal level, it becomes possible to execute a project of this nature. To expand and provide transparency to the studies and lessons learned so far, the Undersecretariat for Regulation and the Business Environment is in the process of preparing a booklet that will explain, in simple and objective language, the step-by-step process for formulating a regulatory sandbox and aspects to be considered by public managers in its preparation.

For greater active transparency, Rio's City Hall has periodically made available, on a specific website (https://sandboxrio.com.br), all information regarding the selection process and the progress of the regulatory sandbox.