# What Do We Learn from Good Practices of Biologically Inspired Design in Innovation?
## 1 Introduction  
Learning from nature has a long history with a well-known potential for innovation and many success stories [1; 2; 3; 4; 5]. Ongoing discoveries in nature, arising fields of application as well as the challenge to transform learning from nature into a robust, repeatable, and scalable methodology [6] keep it an emerging field of research [1; 7]. Several approaches and definitions exist [8; 9], which describe learning from nature to solve technological or practical problems. Biologically inspired design (BID) will be used in this article because we understand BID as an overarching term which describes the knowledge transfer from biology to technology in general. This affords us the opportunity to include a broad range of approaches related to learning from nature, with very limited exclusion [5]. We will give a first insight into examples of good practices with associated success stories, selected for our assessment of the ease of transfer to other approaches. When necessary, we will also use the terms biomimetics or biomimicry in particular, to respect the underlying definitions, motivations, and differences [5; 10]. Research about BID, its definition, and methodology is ongoing and sometimes controversial [6; 8; 11]. Nevertheless, it is clear that learning from nature is a dominant paradigm [1] and as such it can be used and implemented in practice in various ways, for instance by connecting it with design approaches or by considering it a scientific discipline itself [5; 7]. Implementing BID in practice offers a potential to generate optimized solutions combined with the potential to address sustainability as shown for instance with air-retaining surfaces which lead to drag reduction and, as a consequence, a reduced fuel consumption [12]. The topic of sustainability in the context of BID [2; 8; 13; 14; 15] as well as the limitations of transferring knowledge from biological systems to technological application [16] need separate analysis, and the reader is referred to the indicated literature. The process of BID is well described in the literature and various research programs focus on the efficiency of the process in practice, developing methodologies, tools, and processes [6; 11; 17]. As BID is a complex and multidimensional process, which involves several disciplines, the development of concepts or products in BID can be challenging to carry out, and in addition, the steps of commercialization are particularly challenging. BID can be understood as a methodology (which can be used for product optimization), as human-centered design, to a systems thinking approach. It can be closely connected to the innovation process and as such be used for new developments, the rethinking of existing products, or idea generation. In addition, BID can enhance the ideation process in conjunction with the use of strategic foresight and design thinking. Once it leads to a radical (disruptive) innovation, it can have a significant impact on a market, on the economic activity of companies in that market, or potentially lead to the creation of new markets. BID can augment entrepreneurial innovation processes by guiding a designer from a nature-inspired idea to a proof of concept, to a successful solution (product), to an innovation, or even to the establishment of a new company and/or industry, as seen with the development of the hook-and-loop-system VELCRO(r)[18] or with the surface technologies Sharklet [19]. However, though the potential of BID solutions for innovation is well known [1; 20], it does not necessarily mean that these ideas reach the market and unfold their theoretic potential. For example, the discovery of the self-cleaning properties of the lotus plant [21] was a disruptive new paradigm, however the application in products did not have the respective impact on the market (yet), such that every thinkable product, for which self-cleaning properties were desirable, contains such a surface.