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.

BSH Challenge is now live!

Join the challenge and improve your life at home!Ā 
Registration extended till April 5, 2023.
TheĀ partners of the project FRANCISĀ are delighted to welcome you to the firstĀ FRANCIS Frugal Innovation challenge!

When you do household and kitchen chores, do you constantly feel something is missing to help you with these activities? Do you need quick and efficient solutions?Ā 

We are so happy to invite you toĀ innovate with FRANCIS projectĀ and be the creator of your own space with the help of our team of mentors: industry coaches, buddies and facilitators.

This challenge specifically welcomesĀ participantsĀ fromĀ India, Germany and TurkeyĀ but is open to everyone, who is at least 18 years old and speaks English, German or Turkish. We aim at attracting citizens that value simplicity – families with restricted budget and space, people with a minimalist mindset andĀ senior citizen managing their own household. We are also looking forward to your application if you are an entrepreneur with new ideas that could change the market.

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. During the second challenge round the application area solar disinfection will be focused. Target groups are minimalistic consumers, low-/middle-income households in (semi-)rural areas, people in refugee camps and micro-entrepreneurs. Target countries are Turkey, Germany, India, Bangladesh and Uganda.

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.

The scope of the second challenge round will be the application area of solar disinfection for water treatment, food and personal care. Target groups are minimalistic consumers, low-/middle-income households in (semi-)rural areas, people in refugee camps and micro-entrepreneurs. Target market countries are Turkey, Germany, India, Bangladesh and Uganda.

News and Blog

Read our latest blog posts, articles, and announcements.

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