Frugal Innovation : The Systematic Design of Resource-Intelligent Solutions

This book advocates for a systematic approach to developing impactful, resource-efficient solutions in low-resource and high-resource settings. It integrates frugal innovation principles with design thinking and lean impact strategies, bridging the gap between theory and practice.

Frugal Innovation: The Systematic Design of Resource-Intelligent Solutions advocates for a systematic approach to developing impactful, resource-efficient solutions in low-resource and high-resource settings. It integrates frugal innovation principles with design thinking and lean impact strategies, bridging the gap between theory and practice. This book explores themes like resource-constrained design, iterative development, and stakeholder-centric innovation, aligning with global challenges like environmental sustainability and global inequality and aligning with global agendas like the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This book combines theoretical insights with real-world case studies to demonstrate how systematic processes—spanning needs assessment, stakeholder engagement, prototyping, and scaling—can address complex social challenges sustainably. It emphasises achieving maximum impact with minimal resources, ensuring solutions are efficient, accessible, and relevant across diverse socio-economic contexts. With a blend of conceptual depth and practical tools, the book provides repeatable steps for designing cost-effective, scalable, and context-appropriate solutions. Key concepts like resource-intelligent design, lean experimentation, and stakeholder-centric innovation are illustrated through case studies, showing how abstract ideas are applied in real-world social and technological settings. Ideal for designers, engineers, social innovators, and professionals in social enterprise, sustainable development, and humanitarian design, the book offers guidance on driving inclusive, scalable progress within real-world constraints. Edited by experts in fields like biomedical innovation, systems thinking, and co-created health technologies, it equips readers to design technically robust and socially responsive solutions for meaningful impact. A PDF version of this book is available for free in Open Access at http://www.taylorfrancis.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.