UMSICHT thematizes: Questions about a Biological Technology

With the special issue, we would like to make a differentiated contribution to a current research policy debate, which is based on previous discussions on biomimetic concepts, a knowledge-based bio-economy, and biotechnology, but also includes topics in the debate that do not initially sound biologically. These include, for example, new production concepts based on artificial intelligence. In the current discussion, a biological model is being developed to guide future research. Innovations and social changes comparable to the digital revolution are expected.

If technical developments and economic processes in the future are oriented more towards models from nature, this is not automatically associated with better technology or economy. In each individual case, the question of the sustainability of the procedures or processes must be asked and discussed, what kind of biological principles these are that can be transferred to technology and business, which principles are to be transferred to which areas, and which are more unsuitable for transfer. Some of the possible applications – for example, the transfer of evolutionary principles into economic areas – must be ethically evaluated by science and society.

The publication series "UMSICHT Diskurs" is dedicated to selected and current topics of application-oriented research. The special issues are not studies in the classic sense, which usually reflect the state of the art. They should be understood as a format that compiles information for scientific and social discourse. Questions can also be formulated, the answers to which must necessarily remain open today.