Conversations about innovation in healthcare often focus on emerging technologies: smarter diagnostics, faster data analysis, and the development of new medical devices. While these advances are important, the discussions often overlook a more fundamental question: who are these innovations actually designed for?
Historically, healthcare research and innovation have often assumed the male body as the default. Women have been underrepresented in clinical trials, biomedical studies and health technology testing, creating data gaps that affect the design of treatments, devices and services. As a result, women are more likely to experience adverse drug reactions and misdiagnoses, reflecting gaps in how health data has been collected and used in medical research. Addressing this problem, however, requires more than simply improving datasets. It also means involving women in research and co-designing healthcare innovations to ensure products and services meet their real needs.
This is the approach taken by the Collective Innovation Lab (CIL), led by Dr Celine Mougenot at the Dyson School of Design Engineering. Rather than simply designing innovations for women, Dr Mougenot and her team co-design with them, ensuring women’s voices are embedded in the process of developing new products and services.
