Bionicum Nürnberg
How to find us:
- Street
- Am Tiergarten 30
- Zip, City
- 90480 Nürnberg
- Country
- Germany
- Phone
- 0911 - 65084500
- Web
- https://www.bionicum.de
Description
At the entrance to Tiergarten Nürnberg, on the upper floor of the heritage-listed Naturkundehaus, is the Bionicum, a centre linking biology and technology. It comprises the visitor centre „Ideenreich Natur“ as well as the Bionicum research unit and presents bionics as an interface between observation of nature and technical application.
The project was financed with funds from the Bayerischen Umweltministeriums as part of the Zukunftsinitiative „Aufbruch Bayern“. Coordination was initially handled by the Bayerisches Landesamt für Umwelt in cooperation with Tiergarten Nürnberg and two universities. On 1 January 2023 the Staatlichen Naturwissenschaftlichen Sammlungen Bayerns took over coordination; since then the Bionicum has been one of five regional museums of this collection institution, alongside the Naturkunde-Museum Bamberg, the Rieskrater-Museum, the Jura-Museum and the Urwelt-Museum Oberfranken.
The visitor centre’s exhibition space covers about 400 m². Since July 2014 it has displayed original exhibits, experimental stations and background information that explain technical solutions modelled on nature. A bionics tour links the exhibition to selected enclosures in the Tiergarten and includes practical experiments in places. Since 2018 the offer has been supplemented by a bionic garden with plant models such as burdock, horsetail and nasturtium. With its education programme, the Bionicum serves as the first out-of-school learning venue for bionics in Bavaria and offers interactive tours, research worksheets and professional development for teachers. From October 2024 to February 2025 the building was closed for renovation work.
Research activities at the Bionicum focused from 2012 to 2019 on materials science, mechatronics, optics, computer science, modelling and design for the development of bionic technologies, in cooperation with regional universities. Since 2019 the Bionicum has taken part as an outreach and education institution in the BayBionik project network, in which several Bavarian universities research bionic applications.
Bayerisches Landesamt für Umwelt (ed.): Bionik Ideenreich Natur. Augsburg, 2014. ISBN 978-3-936385-94-6.