Biom*: On becoming a teachable discipline

Biomimetics has a long history in the development of technical products inspired by nature. In order to use knowledge from nature in practice, users need to understand the topic holistically, from its biology background to its application process. Therefore it is important to know the characteristics of biomimetics that can be learned and taught. This chapter deals with the questions of whether biomimetics is a mature discipline and which characteristics of a discipline need to evolve in the future. A hybrid model for the characterization of a discipline is presented and next steps for the further development of biomimetics are proposed. The authors conclude that biomimetics can be understood as a superdiscipline which learns from other disciplines and influences them as well.