AboutTheNetwork

About the Nature Inspired Creative Design cluster

"Nature Inspired Creative Design" is a new research network, part of the AHRB/EPSRC funded "Designing for the 21st Century" program. The network is based in CERCIA (the Centre of Excellence for Research in Computational Intelligence and Applications) at the University of Birmingham.

CERCIA is creating a cluster of scientists, artists, designers, and industrialists that focusses on taking ideas, methods, paradigms and algorithms from nature and introducing them into the design process. Nature inspired approaches have the potential to create better designs, as well as better design processes and tools. The cluster will have three main tasks: bring people together to identify possibilities for collaboration, encourage and support the collaborations, and explore new research directions and topics. The cluster activities consist of workshops, seminars and an exhibition; as well as an online forum.

Aims and Objectives

The goal of the network is to bring together scientists, engineers, artists, design practitioners, and industrialists to explore how nature inspired models can be used to improve the design processes of the future. It aims at identifying new research directions, developing novel research programmes, and drafting high-quality research project proposals. The main objectives of this project include:

• to organize a series of interdisciplinary workshops and seminars for networking and exchanging ideas
• to set up a virtual network of academic/industrial researchers and practitioners
• to build a comprehensive website which serves as a unified source of information on both fundamental and practical work in the proposed area, as well as a community forum, both during the funded period and following on from that.
• to hold a public exhibition on some of the preliminary work arising from the proposed network

The network's activities are outlined in the Network Calendar.

More details can be found in the Case for Support document.
Links:
CERCIA
Designing for the 21st Century
EPSRC
AHRC

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