Workshop: Biological Collections as a Resource for Technical Innovation

美国和世界各地的许多自然历史博物馆都藏有大量珍贵的生物标本研究收藏。这些收藏品构成了世界上许多已知生物多样性的档案。这个档案已经被用作与生物学和保护研究有关的许多不同目的的不可或缺的资源。该奖项将支持一系列活动，包括将探索自然历史收藏作为工程创新资源的新用途的研讨会。这一奋进背后的基本原理是，世界的生物多样性代表了进化的结果，这一过程与工程优化有许多相似之处，但在时间，空间以及所涉及的不同物种和个体的数量方面一直在大规模运作。由于没有任何人类工程努力可以接近生物进化的时间和空间尺度，生物多样性可以被视为一种宝贵的自然资源，用于优化可能对技术发展产生重大影响的知识，寻找重大工程挑战的解决方案，通过创新刺激经济活动。为了实现其目标，启动一个可行的进程，利用自然历史收藏作为一种资源，创新，该奖项支持的一系列活动将汇集来自不同背景的研究人员，为前进的道路规划战略。为期一年的第一项活动将首先由一个核心小组举行筹备会议，精心制定议程，以便就该主题举办大型跨学科研讨会，取得切实成果。在这次主要研讨会之后，一个作者小组将继续开会，并将主要研讨会的结果消化成两套出版物，一套针对科学/工程界，另一套针对一般公众。第一批出版物旨在为来自不同背景的科学家和工程师提供关于如何利用自然历史收藏进行工程创新的具体建议。这些出版物还将尽可能详细地概述相关挑战以及潜在的解决方案策略。第二套出版物的目的是向决策者和公众提供一个合理的概述，说明自然历史收藏的创新和经济潜力，以及实现这一潜力所需的努力。 该项目的成果将在弗吉尼亚理工大学生物启发科学和技术中心的网站（http：//www.example.com）上存档。bist.centers.vt.edu

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).