Regional studies and frugal innovation: a missing link?

ABSTRACT

Innovation has been a key topic of interest for the regional studies community. In particular, the regional characteristics and impacts of innovation have been a popular theme of enquiry and theorisation, and the community has been at the forefront of discussions around regional innovation systems, in particular. However, we see a large gap in the current state of the art around frugal innovation. The focus of this paper is to place this topic at the heart of our discussions of regional innovation. This is done by providing a case study of frugal innovations in Kashmir over the period of the COVID-19 pandemic, illustrating the urgency and relevance of exploring frugal innovation at the regional level, especially as a rapid place-based crisis response, specifically in a developing nation.

KEYWORD:

• frugal innovation
• regional innovation system
• COVID-19

JEL:

• O3

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors thank the reviewers for their helpful suggestions in the development if this paper, in addition to the Urban and Regional Horizons section editor John Harrison for his support and guidance throughout the process.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/indias-internet-shutdown-in-kashmir-is-now-the-longest-ever-in-a-democracy/2019/12/15/bb0693ea-1dfc-11ea-977a-15a6710ed6da_story.html/

2. Hindustan Times, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLR0oDZTnow

3. Quotations are left blind to protect the identities of innovators when making critical comments towards the government.

4. See https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3680618348678691

Additional information

Funding

Rhiannon Pugh gratefully acknowledges funding from FORMAS [grant number 2018-01053]. Soumodip Sarkar gratefully acknowledges generic financial support received from the Fundação para Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) [grant number UIDB/04007/2020].