Public Lecture: Saradindu Bhaduri
February 07, 2023 – February 07, 2023 15:00 – 16:30, IHS, Josefstädter Straße 39, 1080 Vienna, Salon
The evolving agenda of frugal innovation research in India
India’s huge informal economy is widely seen as ‘a hotbed’ of frugal innovations. Research on such innovations started around a decade and a half ago, and prospered under the themes of ‘jugaad’, ‘grassroots’ or ‘informal sector’ innovations. Despite their opverwhelming presence, and distinctive characteristics, the policy encouragement and regulatory support has either been absent or inadequate. In the mainstream innovation policy discussion, these innovations, have, hitherto, been overlooked, largely, because of their small scale, and the absence of the so called ‘finnesse’. Examples of how they resolve localised needs, however, have continued to baffle us. The few compassionate policy efforts geared to promote such activities have attempted to, often unsuccessfully, ‘mainstream’ them by offering the scope of technological collaborations with R&D laboratories, and intellectual property rights protections. In this backdrop the talk will discuss how the agenda of frugal innovations research have evolved in India from trying to identify the key motivations behind such innovations, to understanding the value chain of their production, to analysing the process of their legitimization and knowledge validation. The key regulatory challenges are discussed along with the possible ways of overcoming those challenges, while being sensitive to the trade-offs between ‘scale’ and ‘frugal-ness’ of these innovations.
Moderation: Robert Braun
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