Conference Probes Strengthening Collaboration Between Biology and Design

As biomimicry continues its emergence as a strong innovation tool for sustainable design, fostering effective collaboration between biologists and designers is an important consideration.

Clint Penick, co-organizer of a recent biomimicry conference, notes the issue is especially critical in long-term, cross-disciplinary partnerships, which he suggests can be the most fruitful in yielding innovative new products and ideas.

“What often comes out of these long-term (collaborations) is they dig deeper and in some cases find just completely serendipitous discoveries that have applications that would not be imagined with just a brief investigation,” says Penick.

A group of delegates probed how to strengthen collaborations across disciplines at the Feb. 18-20 conference, Social Biomimicry: Insect Societies and Human Design, in Tempe, Arizona.

The group identified that developing funding resources that encourage or require cross-disciplinary collaboration is one activity that needs to happen more. There are a few rare cases, particularly in the academic world, where this is already taking place.

It was also noted that the question of what biologists stand to gain from the biology/design partnerships must be answered. With most of the efforts, the bulk of resources and information flows from biology to engineering and design.

Conference co-organizer Rebecca Clark says two potential solutions were highlighted.

“In a lot of cases what tends to make collaborations between biologists and designers and engineers more effective is if the designers and engineers come into the biology lab and have a chance to see and experience the biological research first-hand,” says Clark.

“One of the things that biologists get out of that is a different perspective on the research they’re doing, because people from other disciplines have different kinds of questions and different approaches to understanding the world.”

The partnerships can also benefit biologists in that they often provide access to better tools and technologies, say both Penick and Clark.

A current cross-disciplinary project between a robotics engineering department and biology group studying ants at two universities is an example of where this has taken place.

The engineers have introduced new sensor technology for tracking the movement of ants to the biology department.

— Watch for an upcoming story on this project

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Social Biomimicry Confirms Value of Decentralized, Individualized Organization, Says Conference Facilitator

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