Citizen Frugal Innovation: Insights From International Open Innovation Challenges With Underrepresented Groups of Society

At the AHFE 2024 in Nizza, the EU-funded FRANCIS presented insights from an international Open Innovation challenge on kitchen and household ideas that targeted groups of society that are underrepresented in comparable initiatives: challenged families, green (i.e. eco-friendly) minimalists and independent senior citizens. It highlighted lessons learned from the experiences and conceptual changes that were explored before starting the next challenge with a focus on travel, hotel and outdoor experiences. Now, the project has completed this second challenge that again aimed at involving the perspective of neglected groups by including citizens such as the operational staff of hotels and solo-travellers in the target community. The paper will detail the lessons learned from both challenges and detail if and how the changes between both challenges have proven to be an improvement or have actually failed to optiimise the process. The overarching aim of FRANCIS is to explore the potential of citizen frugal innovation (CFI), i.e. the ability of citizens to create simple high-value yet affordable solutions with limited resources. It does so by engaging citizens in idea challenges focused on everyday needs. The lessons learned presented in the paper will include facts and figures, along with insights from anecdotal evidence and results from surveys and interviews. The paper's rich data set will highlight key factors that enable or prevent citizen participation in frugal innovation. It will benefit future initiatives of industry, science and civil organizations. The paper will also examine the impact dimension of the project with respect to sustainability as well as responsible research and innovation.The following is a short summary of key findings achieved by FRANCIS: (1) It is of utmost importance to localise the citizen's support. (2) Tools and methods used in the challenges need to be simplified beyond typical standards in innovation management as, for example, used in the work with small and medium enterprises, students and startup entrepreneurs. (3) Trust and empowerment are key levers for getting citizens involved. (4) Industry coaching is helpful but expectation management is needed to create suitable awareness about citizen projects.