Bik: Bionics in SMEs

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Biomimetics (German: Bionik, Dutch: bionica) is an out-of-the-box innovation method that is made accessible in this project for SMEs. In this way, the German and Dutch SMEs gain access to a huge potential of breakthrough innovations inspired by nature, and thus to new economic value, as has already been proven for larger companies. SMEs also have, thanks to this innovation method, ample opportunities to contribute to sustainable and societal issues, such as energy and resource scarcity, environmental issues, global warming, etc. Biomimetics leads to sustainable innovations, because nature is the inventor of sustainability and has been developing and testing sustainable technical solutions for nearly 4 billion years. In this time nature has come up with 'proven technology' ready to be used by us. The many innovative, often active SMEs in the manufacturing industry, like mechanical engineering, installation and logistic equipment sector, form the backbone of the economy in the EUREGIO and the EDR. To strengthen their competitiveness, these technology-driven companies in essence rely on far-reaching innovations and particularly integrated applied product-, process- and service innovations. The biggest innovation challenge for these SMEs is combining several new techniques to integrated system solutions. In regard to this urgent need for interdisciplinary technology, biomimetics provides the natural solutions. Nature is an expert in (autonomous) integrated system (organisms), meeting several demands at once and reconciling conflicting demands and will inspire an enormous range of new development opportunities in this project for the SMEs in the EUREGIO and the EDR.

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