Universities in the U.K. and China have developed a collaborative center to bring their individual research into biomimicry together.

The UK-China Joint Laboratory on Biomimetics of Functional Surfaces & Fluids Interactions held its official opening this month in northeast China.

The lab is located at Jilin University, the largest university in China, which founded the lab in partnership with the U.K.-based University of Nottingham.

Researchers from the two universities will work together on biomimetics research, looking for processes and tools in the natural world that can be copied and applied elsewhere. Biomimicry has already led to such innovations as paint that mimics the surface of Lotus leaves (shown above) in order to better repel dirt and wash clean.

The joint laboratory is an outgrowth of the universities’ previous work together, which has seen, since 2003, five professors and four PhD students from Jilin University visit Nottingham for collaborative research.