Welcome to the FRANCIS Project!

This Frugal innovation by Citizens for Citizens project receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101006220.

News and Blog

Read our latest blog posts, articles, and announcements.

Celebrating Innovation: Highlights and Statistics from the First FRANCIS Challenge

Celebrating Innovation: Highlights and Statistics from the First FRANCIS Challenge

The First FRANCIS Challenge, held on 06 October 2023, was not just a platform for groundbreaking ideas but also a testament to global participation and diverse representation. From space-saving furniture designs to energy-efficient appliances, the challenge brought forward innovative solutions. Let’s dive into the standout projects and the statistics that shaped this challenge.

FRANCIS

FRANCIS’ consortium includes seven partners from six European countries – Fraunhofer from Germany, VTT from Finland, Finnish non-profit organization InnoFrugal, The Behavioural Insights Team from the United Kingdom, the French tech startup Agorize and two industrial enterprises, HELIOZ from Austria and Turkey’s BSH Home Appliances.

The FRANCIS project aims to develop frugal innovations by citizens for citizens within the scope of open innovation challenges.

This includes establishing a scientific foundation with recommendations on how to involve different participant groups in the challenges and how to encourage the shared development of ideas.

This project will run two open innovation challenges, each mentored by an industry partner, who supports the participants in detailing their ideas.

Challenges

Launched in February 2021, the first phase of the project in 2021 will establish a scientific foundation with recommendations on how to involve different participants groups in challenges and how to encourage the shared development of ideas. The second phase, which will take place in 2022 and 2023, will run two open innovation challenges, each mentored by an industry partner, who supports the participants in detailing their ideas.

The scope of the first challenge will be the application area of the culinary world and home care. Focused target groups are troubled families, minimalistic living people and elderly people living alone. 

We are currently in search of a new challenge owner who can bring their unique perspective and expertise to this exciting initiative. The role involves setting up the challenge brief, collaborating on the challenge process, providing technical and market know-how, and assisting in the selection and market entry of innovative ideas.

Lessons learned from the challenges will be incorporated into the citizen frugal innovation framework at the end of the project, so that they can serve as a guide for future frugal innovation initiatives.

The scope of the first challenge will be the application area of the culinary world and home care. Focused target groups are troubled families, minimalistic living people and elderly people living alone. Target market countries are Turkey, Germany, and India.

Please reach out to us for more info.

Contact Us

Project Coordinator

Liza Wohlfart
Fraunhofer IAO
Email: liza.wohlfart@iao.fraunhofer.de

Communication and Dissemination Manager

Venkata Gandikota
InnoFrugal
Email: venkata@innofrugal.org