Deutschland-Nederland BiK: Bionica in het MKB

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. 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: nature has been testing and proving for billions of years.

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, as the natural symbiosis of biology and technology, offers a range of new development opportunities proven by nature.

In the Bionica in het MKB / Bionik in KMU project, SMEs have been supported with their biomimetics development through
different phases:
Phase 1, first introduction – 137 first introductions
Phase 2, application advice – 44 application advices
Phase 3, first solution concept – 11 first solution concepts
Phase 4, demonstrator – 16 demonstrators
Phase 5, prototype – 9 prototypes that are prepared for market introduction

A video and a booklet with the results and developed demonstrators and prototypes can be found on our
project website: