Our society relies on science and technology to solve our problems and to fulfil our needs. We are becoming increasingly aware of the fact that science and technology are not enough to provide us with a society that nourishes our surroundings, but rather the opposite. Our products and innovations consume more natural resources that they create. We have designed both our world economy and product based on the idea that nature provides us with costless materials in abundance. Over time, we have started to treat nature as a dump that can store and clean up all our newly created waste. To become a society that takes care of our Earth, and thus ourselves, we need to switch to circular systems. Instead of designing these new systems ourselves, we could look at existing systems that are circular and harmless by nature by taking inspiration from nature.  

“we need to switch to circular systems […] we could look at existing systems that are circular and harmless by nature by taking inspiration from nature“

That is exactly what we do in the Master’s programme Bio-Inspired Innovation. Over the past decades, several methodologies have been developed that allow us to take inspiration from nature. These could be applied in designing our future economy, for example, by looking at the financial streams of financial sectors as if they were ecological systems that involve energy and biomass. In products, a more direct form of inspiration can be used. Emulation of animal structures are a great way to design or improve products. This is often done within the methodology of Biomimicry, where biology is mimicked to great extents. One prime example is the kingfisher bird, whose beak has inspired the design of a bullet train that needs to enter tunnels without friction, like how the kingfisher enters the water without barely a splash.  

“Within our program we like to think in possibilities, rather than constrains”

Though Biomimicry is currently the most popular form of sustainable design, our program is called Bio-Inspired Innovation for a good reason. We embrace the co-existence of many methodologies that combine biology with sustainable innovation. Bionics, for example, integrates engineering and biology in which a biological function is often carried out by a technical device. Material Ecology focuses of the conceptual interplay between biology, engineering and computer science, and allows the design and engineering of products using biological units, such as bone or silk. These methodologies distinguish themselves by having particular focus points, nevertheless there is a lot of overlap between them. Within our program we like to think in possibilities, rather than constrains, and therefore we attempt to take what is best from each individual design method.