Biomimicry: Solving Industry Challenges with Inspiration from Biology

Biomimicry is the study of nature to discover underlying mechanisms that can be used to solve human problems. It has been shown to deliver solutions in a variety of niche, but meaningful, applications. Most biomimicry research is "bottom-up" - biological phenomenons are identified before looking for practical applications - but innovators in industry want to use a "top-down" approach that begins with a specific design problem or market need and finds a biomimetic technology to address it. In this report, we explore how companies interact with biomimicry and its applications in solving well-defined design challenges.Through this analysis, we found that most clients can trust that conventional technology scouting approaches will identify biomimicry-based solutions as they arrive, but there may be certain cases where clients should use biomimicry solution specialists to screen for ideas.