Building on tradition: What Frugal Innovation can learn from Decades of Academic Research

Research

Making economic progress sustainable has become the central issue of our time. Recent work on frugal innovation seeks to contribute to this challenge. The key attributes of frugal innovations are first, that they are sparing in the use of resources and second, that they are accessible and affordable for underserved populations. They are particularly relevant in  in low-income settings but also hold value for people in affluent economies, as frugal innovations can help us to push towards a more sustainable future. As a result, frugal innovations have global significance and impact the lives of the majority of the world’s population.

Frugal innovation is a relatively new area of research compared to other fields of knowledge and disciplines that seek to contribute to the sustainability of human life on our planet. It therefore makes sense to distil what can be learned from earlier debates and more established disciplines in order to accelerate the development and uptake of frugal innovations.