With novel design and fabrication techniques, InGaZnO-based thin-film transistors with individual recessed back-gates were fabricated on flexible and transparent polymer substrates. The key components for the fabrication include using a machine park optimized for Si process technology, low-adhesion, room temperature parylene coating, AlOx-ZnOx(Al)-based inorganic lift-off process, and a recessed individual gate concept. Transistors were built to validate the viability of the design as well as aforementioned techniques. The demonstrated approach could open up new design possibilities for cheap, flexible devices, while the recessed-gate concept shows promise towards the use of more brittle layers in our flexible thin-film electronic devices. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.