1:00 pm - 2:00 pm 30/04/2025
Sustainable Society SIG Seminar Series – Inaugural Seminar: “Learning from Nature: Using Biomimicry to Inspire Regenerative Enterprise Education”
30 April 2025 13:00-14:00
This inaugural lunch time seminar from Enterprise Educators UK’s recently launched Sustainable Society SIG, will explore the emerging role of biomimicry and nature-based pedagogy within entrepreneurship and enterprise education.
Dr Trudie Murray, a lecturer and researcher in entrepreneurship at Munster Technological University and a Fellow of EEUK, will share how she integrates biomimicry into her teaching and research to inspire regenerative thinking in students, educators, and small business communities. Drawing on her work with undergraduate and postgraduate learners, Trudie will explore how learning from nature’s strategies can offer practical tools for responsible innovation and sustainability transitions.
The session will begin by unpacking what biomimicry is, and how its principles can align with and enrich enterprise education – not as a metaphor, but as a model for thinking differently about value creation, systems, and resilience. She will then share examples from her own teaching practice, including how biomimicry is embedded into entrepreneurship modules and how students respond when introduced to concepts such as regeneration, symbiosis, and circularity through a nature-informed lens.
The second half of the session will connect these pedagogical approaches to her ongoing interdisciplinary research, which focuses on developing biomimicry-driven regenerative business models for maritime SMEs. Her research is grounded in constructivist grounded theory and aims to build scalable frameworks that support small firms in transitioning from sustainability to regeneration. As part of this, she is also exploring the role of nature-based pedagogy and outdoor learning spaces, including the potential of an the outdoor classroom.
Who will benefit from this session?
This session is ideal for enterprise educators, curriculum designers, and sustainability advocates who are seeking to:
- Embed deeper systems thinking into their enterprise and innovation modules
- Connect pedagogy with planetary boundaries and place-based learning
- Explore new interdisciplinary and regenerative approaches to teaching and research.
Throughout the session, Trudie will share insights, questions, and practical reflections – and invites participants to consider: What can nature teach us about how we design, deliver, and rethink entrepreneurship and enterprise education?
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