About us
On December 17, 2013, the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research (EAER) announced that it would support a new National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) for Bio-Inspired Materials at the University of Fribourg. Since then, this leading interdisciplinary center has been striving to become an internationally recognized hub for paradigm-shifting research, innovation, and education in the domain of “smart” materials whose function and design are inspired by nature.
Transcending traditional disciplines, the center integrates the research activities of 26 research groups from the University of Fribourg’s Adolphe Merkle Institute, its departments of chemistry, medicine, biology, and physics, the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ) and Lausanne (EPFL), as well as CSEM, Empa, Cornell, the University of Salzburg, KU Leuven, and TU Darmstadt.