Collaborations between academics and industrial partners can accelerate innovations and benefit both parties. On one hand, companies can boost their capacities through access to high-tech equipment and skilled researchers. On the other hand, universities can obtain better understanding of the market needs and enhance the technology readiness level of their research. However, there are many barriers that often prevent efficient collaborations between universities and industries. Unreliability of non-disclosure agreements (NDA) and time-consuming, expensive patent application procedures are just a few obstacles to name. Even when inventions/patents are officially filed, the urge to own the exclusive rights of the intellectual property (IP) could be an obstacle to establish proper industry-university collaborations (IUC). The lack of trust appears to be one of the first and main reasons that often prevents constructive cooperation between universities and industries. Hence, there is a need for proactive policies to support academics by providing legally binding agreements as authentic mediators between academics and companies to facilitate their first approach. That could be the first step towards building a trusted partnership. This can help overcome the obstacles mentioned earlier and enable researchers to safely share their ideas. If implemented, this would not only benefit universities but also small and medium-sized enterprises that have limited resources. We do hope that this short article opens a conversation regarding policy changes in countries where stronger links between universities and industries are needed.

Insect wings are deformable airfoils, in which deformations are mostly achieved by complicated interactions between their structural components. Due to the complexity of the wing design and technical challenges associated with testing the delicate wings, we know little about the properties of their components and how they determine wing response to flight forces. Here, we report an unusual structure from the hind-wing membrane of the beetle Pachnoda marginata. The structure, a transverse section of the claval flexion line, consists of two distinguishable layers: a bell-shaped upper layer and a straight lower layer. Our computational simulations showed that this is an effective one-way hinge, which is stiff in tension and upward bending but flexible in compression and downward bending. By systematically varying its design parameters in a computational model, we showed that the properties of the double-layer membrane hinge can be tuned over a wide range. This enabled us to develop a broad design space, which we later used for model selection. We used selected models in three distinct applications, which proved that the double-layer hinge represents a simple yet effective design strategy for controlling the mechanical response of structures using a single material and with no extra mass. The insect-inspired, one-way hinge is particularly useful for developing structures with asymmetric behavior, exhibiting different responses to the same load in two opposite directions. This multidisciplinary study not only advances our understanding of the biomechanics of complicated insect wings but also informs the design of easily tunable engineering hinges.