“Frugal innovation” jointly developed by Austrian companies and local partners in emerging or developing countries can make a positive contribution.

“Frugal innovation,” jointly developed by Austrian companies and local partners in emerging or developing countries, can make a positive contribution. It can address global social challenges and contribute to the achievement of SDGs (e.g. combating poverty and hunger, promoting health and well-being or securing access to affordable and clean energy).

This project of ZSI in collaboration with Impact Hub Vienna had several goals:

• Create awareness and strengthen the understanding for “frugal innovation” in Austria and South East Europe.
• Identifiy possible new business models for Austrian companies that want to better use the potential of "frugal innovation”;
• Identifiy potential partners and suitable projects for further grant funding in the area of “frugal innovation”.

As a target group, the project aimed at beneficiaries from Austria and the focus region (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia) who were already engaged or wanted to become active in the future with the topic of "frugal innovation". This included private companies, NGOs and international organizations. In order to raise awareness and strengthen the understanding for “frugal innovation” in Austria and South East Europe, a kick-off event as well as three in-depth events were implemented in Vienna.

In the course of the project, ZSI was responsible for providing expertise on different topics related to sustainable innovation such as innovation eco-system, frugal innovation theory, process management, sustainability transitions and social innovation. More specifically, ZSI prepared and conducted the following tasks:

• Presentation on Frugal Innovation in the EU;
• Recommendation report on new frugal innovation funding schemes
• Focus group design and implementation
• Design and implementation of group interviews.

Team:

• Wolfgang Haider, MA BA (project leader)

Section: Research Policy & Development

Partners:

• 288 Grad Consulting
• Smart Kolektiv Serbia
• Impact Hub Vienna (Coordinator)

Related Articles:

• Publication: Funding Frugal Innovation: Lessons on design and implementation of public funding schemes stimulating Frugal Innovation
• Publication: Looking for in-depth knowledge on "Funding frugal Innovations" & on "Indo-European cooperation within the framework of FP7"?

Tags: Austria, frugal innovation, Southeast Europe