Innovation for a Better World - Frugale Innovation



Contract partner: Impact Hub Vienna GmbH Country: Österreich Funding amount: € 107.900,00 Project start: 30.01.2020 End: 15.12.2020

Short Description:

Overall goal


“Frugal innovation” jointly developed by Austrian companies and local partners in emerging or developing countries can make a positive contribution: they can address global social challenges and contribute to the achievement of SDGs (e.g. combating poverty and hunger, promoting health and well-being or securing access to affordable and clean energy).


Expected results


- Creating awareness and strengthen the understanding for “frugal innovation” in Austria and South East Europe;

- Identification of possible new business models for Austrian companies that want to better use the potential of "frugal innovation”;

- Identification of potential partners and suitable projects for further grant funding in the area of “frugal innovation”.

 


Target group / Beneficiaries


All relevant actors from Austria and the focus region (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia) who are already engaged or want to become active in the future with the topic of "frugal innovation" will be addressed. This can include private companies, NGOs and international organizations. The location venue is Vienna.

It is planned to involve for the kick-off event 40-60 participants and for the three in-depth events 15 – 25 participants.


Activities


In order raise awareness and strengthen the understanding for “frugal innovation” in Austria and South East Europe, a kick-off event as well as three in-depth events are planned.


Context


A study carried out on behalf of the Austrian Council for Technology Development concluded that "innovation policy in Austria should focus more on the promotion of frugal innovation - from a purely technology-oriented approach to a more comprehensive and extended innovation approach that includes innovations in marketing and design. It seems necessary to raise awareness of the opportunities, potentials and risks of frugal innovation and to support companies in building up frugal innovation capacities".

The Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and the Research Promotion Agency (FFG, Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft) agreed to start a pilot project in South East Europe focusing on “frugal innovation”, due to preexisting close collaboration of innovation networks and great potential in this area.

 

project number 2804-00/2020
source of funding OEZA
sector Geschäftwesen und andere Leistungen
tied 107900
modality Project-type interventions
marker
  • Policy marker: are used to identify, assess and facilitate the monitoring of activities in support of policy objectives concerning gender equality, aid to environment, participatory development/good governance, trade development and reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health. Activities targeting the objectives of the Rio Conventions include the identification of biodiversity, climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, and desertification.
    • 1= policy is a significant objective of the activity
    • 2= policy is the principal objective of the activity
  • Donor/ source of funding: The ADA is not only implementing projects and programmes of the Austrian Development Cooperation , but also projects funded from other sources and donors such as
    • AKF - Foreign Disaster Fund of the Austrian federal government
    • BMLFUW - Federal Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water
    • EU - Funds of the European Commission
    • Others - various other donors are listed in ADA’s annual business report.
  • Type of Aid – Aid modalities: classifies transfers from the donor to the first recipient of funds such as budget support, core contributions and pooled programmes and funds to CSOs and multilateral organisations, project-type interventions, experts and other technical assistance, scholarships and student costs in donor countries, debt relief, administrative costs and other in-donor expenditures.
  • Purpose/ sector code: classifies the specific area of the recipient’s economic or social structure, funded by a bilateral contribution.
  • Tied/Untied: Untied aid is defined as loans and grants whose proceeds are fully and freely available to finance procurement from all OECD countries and substantially all developing countries. Transactions are considered tied unless the donor has, at the time of the aid offer, clearly specified a range of countries eligible for procurement which meets the tests for “untied” aid.