Workshop: Biological Collections as a Resource for Technical Innovation

Virginia Polytechnic Institute And State University, Blacksburg VA

Investigators

Abstract

Many natural history museums in the US and around the world harbor large and invaluable research collections of biological specimens. These collections form an archive of much of the world's known biodiversity. This archive is already used as an indispensable resource for many different purposes related to research in biology and conservation. This award will support a number of activities, including workshops that will explore a novel use of natural history collections as a resource for engineering innovation. The rationale behind this endeavor is that the world's biodiversity represents the outcomes of evolution, a process that shares many similarities with engineering optimization, but has been operating on a vast scale in terms of time, space, and the number of different species and individuals involved. Since no human engineering effort can come close to the time and spatial scales of biological evolution, biodiversity can be seen as a precious natural resource for optimizing knowledge that could have a major impact on technology development, finding solutions to major engineering challenges, and stimulating economic activity through innovation. To achieve its goal of starting a viable process towards utilizing natural history collection as a resource for innovation, the set of activities supported by this award will bring together researchers from very different backgrounds to plan a strategy for a path forward. The first year-long activity will start with preparatory meetings by a core team to carefully craft an agenda so that a large interdisciplinary workshop on the topic can be productive and result in tangible outcomes. After this main workshop, a team of authors will continue to meet and digest the results of the main workshop into two sets of publications, one set aimed at the scientific/engineering community and the other at the general public. The first set of publications will be aimed at giving scientists and engineers from diverse backgrounds specific suggestions as to how natural history collections could be leveraged for engineering innovation. These publication will also outline the pertinent challenges as well as potential solution strategies in as much technical detail as possible. The second set of publications will be aimed at providing policy makers and the general public a well-justified outline of the innovative and economic potential of natural history collections as well as estimates for the effort that would be required to realize this potential. The outcomes of the project will be archived on the website of the Center for Bioinspired Science and Technology at Virginia Tech (http://bist.centers.vt.edu).