Bionics

Bionics (a science concerned with the application of data about the functioning of biological systems to the solution of engineering problems) is taking on increasing importance in terms of achieving sustainable technological progress. The growing focus on bionic solutions for research, industrial and business applications is more than deserved, inasmuch as the virtually infinite range of extremely efficient mechanisms and designs available in the natural world provide a rich source of innovative ideas for researchers and developers in all disciplines.

The appeal of bionic systems includes the fact that (a) they allow for multidimensional optimization and minimal energy and material use; and (b) nearly 100 percent of the waste generated by bionic products is recyclable. Thus bionic solutions are a paragon, as well as a rich source of ideas, when it comes to the ecological products and processes that form the basis for sustainable economic activities; plus they allow for a strategic approach to sustainability.

Just as bionics promotes innovation across industries, major advances in the field of bionics are often catalyzed by scientific and technological progress in other disciplines. For example, new findings and methods have emerged over the years in areas such as nanotechnology that have opened up new areas of structural and functional research into natural mechanisms and have allowed for the implementation of numerous technical discoveries in this domain as well.

Our "Bionics Innovation for Sustainable Products and Technologies" (BIONA) program funds research aimed at leveraging the vast storehouse of ideas available in the natural world, with a view to developing sustainable and competitive solutions. BIONA also funds the dissemination of the kind of novel approaches embodied by bionics prototypes and demo products. Like the field of bionics itself, BIONA is multidisciplinary in that it encompasses materials science, dynamic systems, static structures (lightweight constructions, design and aesthetics, space vehicles, motor vehicles and floating contructions), process engineering, data transfer and processing technology, and organizational modalities (industrial ecology, as well as management and models for knowledge transfer in the field of bionics).

BIOKON, a bionics networking facility established by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), provides German bionics developers, researchers and vendors with an extensive infrastructure that also makes Germany a bionics leader at the international level. We also fund Bionics research in Germany through various other projects, including "Research for Sustainability," as well as additional technical and framework programs that are an outgrowth, and reflect the inherently interdisciplinary nature, of bionics. In 2005, these various programs were consolidated into a single entity and an overarching funding strategy was defined for them.

The initiation, intensification and leveraging of collaboration between research institutions and the business sector are central to our funding of bionics research. For we feel strongly that productive collaboration between the scientific and business communities is the key to leveraging the full potential of bionics in the interest of strengthening innovation, competitiveness and sustainability in Germany.