Nature has long played a role as a source of inspiration for innovation.

Five hundred years ago Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machine designs were inspired by nature. His keen observational approach to fusing art and natural history provided some of the finest examples of nature inspired invention.

Flight is a subject that regularly taps into the natural world for revelations. Wilbur Wright, one half of aeronautical pioneers the Wright brothers, was inspired by the way that birds change the angle of the ends of their wings to make their bodies roll left or right.

It was after puzzling over how to achieve the same effect with man-made wings that the brothers eventually patented wing-warping that allowed them to their steer their first powered flight in The Flyer.

The process of imitating and drawing inspiration from nature is termed biomimicry, and it forms a vital link in transferring solutions from the natural environment to the innovative world of business.

We see the results of biomimicry entrenched in everyday life and are probably never more than a couple of metres away from a product or process that was initially inspired from nature.

A quick search through any office brings up a heap of products incorporating Velcro, inspired in 1948 by the way that burrs clung to dog fur, and a glance out of the window will reveal Cat’s Eye reflectors on our roads.

Sometimes we don’t even know that we are looking at something biologically inspired, especially now there are products such as self-cleaning paints that incorporate the Lotus-effect – the mechanism that makes water bead on lotus leaves and helps prevent dirt build-up.

Oxford Biomaterials, a spin-out from Oxford University, is a company with a biomimetic product at the heart of its business.

Spidrex, an absorbable biomaterial based on spider silk, is the company’s key product and is being applied to the repair and regeneration of human tissues.

Chief executive Dr Nick Skaer said: "Spider silk has great potential as a biomaterial: it is both extremely strong and biocompatible whilst also acting as an excellent base for human cells to grow on and is slowly absorbed when implanted in the body. "But it is not a commercially realistic proposition as it is produced in such minute quantities. So we have employed a biomimetic approach to reproduce the properties of spiders silk and we can manufacture it in large quantities."

Spidrex is derived from silk fibroins — the insoluble white protein that is the essential component of raw silk and spider-web filaments — that possess excellent mechanical properties and are naturally degraded by the body over time.

Spidrex has wide ranging applications and Oxford Biomaterials is looking at product development in the areas of nerve repair, wound closure, cartilage repair and bone graft materials.

Half a millennium after da Vinci’s drawings, careful observation of biological structures and organisms is still a central component of biologically inspired innovation.

Dr Graham Taylor, of Oxford University's zoology department, is applying the basic approach of observation, combined with some not-so-basic equipment and mathematics, to furthering our knowledge of flight dynamics.

He explained: "Where a designer would give an aircraft a rigid wing with hydraulically-driven flaps, evolution has given birds actively deforming wings with ultra-lightweight flaps – feathers – that deploy passively and automatically during manoeuvres."

Now Dr Taylor's sponsors at the US Air Force Research Laboratories are exploring adding feather-like flaps to small autonomous air vehicles, with the aim of achieving enhanced flight performance under a range of different conditions.

Hosted by Reading University, BIONIS, the Biomimetics Network for Industrial Sustainability, aims to promote the use of biomimetics and to provide a platform for attracting investment, partnerships and collaborations to the research.

It has identified 12 focus areas for potential biomimicry including opportunities for biologically- inspired robotics and even energy usage and resource efficiency strategies.

Dr Richard Bonser, of the Centre for Biomimetics at Reading University and a member of BIONIS said: "Nature tends to be very economical in the way it uses both materials and energy. "By looking to nature for inspiration, technologies may be engineered that are far cleaner and greener than may be achieved using traditional approaches.

"The real challenge remains drawing innovative technologies from the laboratory bench to the market place."

Later this month BIONIS will be holding a commercial biomimetics event that will include presentations from companies successfully drawing inspiration from nature for commercial innovation.