Plants are more intelligent than we often give them credit for. Over billions of years of evolution they have had to develop strategies for survival. That’s why Dr Barbara Mazzolai of the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia is confident that we can solve complex human problems through their biomimicry – the imitation or emulation of natural and biological systems. She is creating creepy-crawly robot plants that grow and act like the real thing. Mazzolai designs revolutionary robotic techniques that can be used in agriculture, medicine and even space exploration: “There was a lot of scepticism in the research community when I first started to think and propose robots inspired by plants,” she says. “Thanks to the first results obtained, plants have finally started to be considered as a model of inspiration for designing and developing new technologies.”