Innovation

Sustainable technologies for low-income settings

LIDC's innovation area creates, tests and measures the impact of low cost, sustainable technologies for low-income settings.

We support a diverse range of tools to address a diverse range of challenges from disease diagnostics to knowledge technologies, bio-sensors and decision-support tools. Our tools are solution-led.

LIDC’s Innovation work also supports the wider application of design thinking processes to underpin research exploring wider challenges faced by our stakeholders.

Related projects

Bloomsbury SET

Infectious diseases, and increasing resistance to antimicrobials (AMR) used to control these diseases, pose a major threat to human health. In particular, the rise of AMR in zoonotic pathogens (bacteria, parasites) can lead to infections in humans that are untreatable even by last-resort drugs. Our ability to assess disease risk, by early detection of pathogens circulating in animal populations, is hampered by a lack of low-cost, portable diagnostic tools. Likewise, disease control is hindered by a dearth of suitable vaccines, and by data scarcity, leading to large uncertainties in mathematical models of pathogen spread and persistence, both in humans and livestock. The Bloomsbury SET (Science, Economics, Technology), which is funded by Research England, will connect place, people, businesses, ideas and infrastructures in pursuit of innovative scientific / technical solutions (tools, vaccines, models) that will help safeguard human health. At the same time, we will use our convening power to test whether our proposed public health interventions are acceptable socially, economically and politically – a vital, but often overlooked, aspect that ultimately determines their success in the real world. In weaving these strands together, The Bloomsbury SET will facilitate innovation and productivity within business (core aims of the Industrial Strategy), whilst also helping to shape public health policies and practices.