# What Do We Learn from Good Practices of Biologically Inspired Design in Innovation?
## 1 Introduction
### Biologically Inspired Design in Innovation
These steps define the three criteria of a true biomimetic development, namely, 1) a function analysis of a biological system has been made, 2) the biological system has been abstracted into a model, and 3) this model has been transferred and applied to design the product [5]. In order to call an innovation based on BID \"biomimetic\", these three criteria must be fulfilled. A BID development can occur at the level of a product, a process, or a practical problem [5] or it can address a societal challenge such as sustainability [33; 48]. The contribution of BID to sustainability is an important branch of research [5; 8; 14] that deserves separate analysis. We therefore address it only when needed in the context of this discussion. Otherwise, we do not make a differentiation in the analyzed cases. Once the result of BID has reached the market, it represents an example of a \"good practice\" biologically inspired innovation. The challenges faced in the \"valley of death\" hold true for any kind of development, so we analyzed its relevance in the BID process. On the one hand, BID faces the same challenges as general innovation processes, such as the transition from a concept to a viable product. On the other hand, BID faces additional challenges, deepening the \"valley of death\". Among others, the knowledge transfer from biology to technology is challenging, as phenomena in biology and their transferability must be understood in detail. Moreover, the transfer from academic research to industrial application is also challenging, as you must convince potential users with your idea that was inspired by nature. We assume that the lack of BID's real impact with regard to the number of successful cases as well as its economic and ecological impact is the general lack of implementation, the difficulties during  
Figure 2: The “valley of death” in innovation and the context of the simplified BID process. Based on and adapted from [46; 47]. BID: Biologically inspired design. the research and development process, and the lack of a viable commercialization strategy including the availability of funding. The research phase in BID is specifically challenging [2]requiring, for example, an intensive research and a deep understanding of biological systems or the abstraction of complex biological phenomena [2]. Additionally, the transfer process of knowledge from biology to technology may differ between projects and can impact the overall innovation process [2]. The chosen level of abstraction will define how much time and money must be invested. Moreover, the gap between discovery phase and commercialization is strenuous and filled with many obstacles and hurdles. Part of the problem is that you cannot really commercialize a discovery, you can only commercialize a viable product. The truth is that the innovation process is not a single event, but a process of discovery, design, and development. To bring a breakthrough discovery to market, one first needs to identify a problem it can solve and connect to researchers who can design it into a viable solution to the problem. These pitfalls are well known within a traditional innovation context, where about 25% of innovation projects are discontinued, 30% experience serious delays, 35% will commercially fail, leading to an overall 10% rate of complete success [49; 50; 51]. Information about the success of developments based on BID is limited and little data is available in order to make a comparison with the traditional innovation process. In addition, the impact of integrating biological knowledge into the innovation process must be evaluated, but no clear methodology is available, yet. However, based on the BioM Innovation Database [22], it can be seen that 31% of the developments based on BID were commercially available, even though no information is available about the success of these products. This means that 69% of the ideas, which were considered to be of value, did not make it to a viable product.