Biologically-Inspired Product Development
A special issue of Biomimetics (ISSN 2313-7673). This special issue belongs to the section "Biomimetic Design, Constructions and Devices".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 January 2026 | Viewed by 210
Special Issue Editors
Interests: emotional design; ecological design; interactive design; artificial intelligence design; sensory engineering
Interests: biomimetic design; service design; design psychology; introduction to design
Interests: biologically inspired design; mechanisms of information acquisition for fluid mechanical and chemical signals by animals; the consequences of perceptual abilities for populations and communities; biosensing; ecological systems analysis as applied to human infrastructure; industrial ecology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Biologically inspired product development is increasingly recognized as a frontier in sustainable and intelligent design. This Special Issue shifts focus to one of the most challenging and underexplored stages in the bionic design pipeline: the generation of product concepts inspired by biological systems. Nature offers a vast repository of functional strategies, structural efficiencies, and adaptive behaviors. However, translating these biological insights into meaningful design concepts—especially in the context of industrial product development—is fraught with challenges. These challenges include identifying relevant biological model systems from an overwhelming diversity of life forms; understanding and abstracting biological principles into transferable design language; bridging disciplinary gaps between biology and design thinking; generating design solutions that preserve the function–structure synergy of the biological source; and using computational or analogical tools to support concept ideation and evaluation.
This Special Issue focuses on the theory, methods, and case studies that reveal the intricacies of biologically inspired concept generation. Particular emphasis is placed on methodological frameworks that enable the mapping of biological functions to product-level concepts, as well as tools and strategies that support the creative transfer of insights from biology to design. We are especially interested in research that explores semantic and analogical reasoning approaches, along with computational tools—such as bio-semantic networks and generative algorithms—that facilitate ideation. Submissions may include case studies in product categories such as furniture, apparel, or packaging, which demonstrate the realization of novel bionic concepts.
We invite theoretical, experimental, and review contributions from product designers, biologists, cognitive scientists, AI researchers, and interdisciplinary teams working at the intersection of nature and design. Special encouragement is given to works that investigate how biological intelligence can inspire the earliest stages of ideation, ultimately leading to innovative, sustainable, and emotionally resonant product concepts.
Dr. Xinhui Kang
Prof. Dr. Min Qu
Prof. Dr. Marc Weissburg
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Biomimetics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- biologically inspired design
- bionic concept generation
- biomimicry in product design
- design-by-analogy
- cross-disciplinary ideation
- bio-semantic mapping
- nature-inspired creativity
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