Researchers have proposed new standards into the decades-old prosthetic donations market, improving the quality of lower limb prosthetic feet by two-thirds—a major quality of life boost for recipients.

An interdisciplinary team of charities, prosthetists and academics led by King’s College London designed and implemented the very first set of standardized regulations for exporting prosthetic feet to the Global South, reducing unusable donations from 16% to 5%.

In so doing, the team have laid the foundation for improved prosthetics provision in the UK and an ethical framework for a global circular economy of prosthetics—the first of its kind.