Erfolgreiche Verteidigung der Dissertation

5 Februar 2026

Jonas Singer, seit 2023 externer Doktorand an unserer Professur, hat am 5. Februar 2026 seine kumulative Dissertation mit dem Titel "From Dual-Use Challenges to Omni-Use Opportunities: Venture Capital, Governance, and the Future of Omni-Use Technologies" erfolgreich verteidigt. Wir beglückwünschen ihn zur dieser Leistung und gratulieren ganz herzlich zu diesem Meilenstein!

Der nachfolgende Abstract gibt erste Einblicke in die Studien, die Bestandteile der Dissertation sind. Bei Interesse an diesen Studien melden Sie sich gerne bei der Professur!

Abstract

This cumulative dissertation, “From Dual-Use Challenges to Omni-Use Opportunities: Venture Capital, Governance, and the Future of Omni-Use Technologies”, examines how Europe can understand, evaluate, and govern technologies that straddle civilian, military, and hybrid domains while aligning innovation, investment, and security objectives. Building on the insight that the conventional dual-use label obscures convergent realities in contemporary general-purpose technologies, this dissertation proposes an omni-use continuum perspective embedded in European policy and market conditions (European Commission, 2020; Fiott, 2014; Vaynman & Volpe, 2023).
Study I conducts a systematic review of sixty-one peer-reviewed studies on European venture capital to delineate the boundary conditions within which omni-use innovation must be financed and scaled. It distinguishes stable drivers (for example, legal frameworks, governance, taxation, and culture) from dynamic drivers (for example, macroeconomic cycles and capital-market conditions), and shows how Europe’s fragmentation, smaller fund sizes, reliance on public-private co-investment, and a persistent scale-up equity gap constrain evaluation and scaling (Alperovych et al., 2020; European Commission, 2024b; Wright & Robbie, 1998). The review adopts evidence-synthesis standards consistent with Denyer and Tranfield and PRISMA (Denyer & Tranfield, 2009; Moher et al., 2009).
Study II investigates the boundaries and conditions of the dual-use technology classification through thirty-two semi-structured expert interviews with participants from the fields of investment, entrepreneurship, policymaking, defence and academia. The evidence reveals a reinforcing pool of constraints, e.g. of resource, structural, and perceptual nature. Essentially, the dual-use concept creates a host of constraints without offering any substantive value in return. Germany serves as a critical case, highlighting the visibility of these frictions in practice. The central outcome is that the dual-use classification is not fit for purpose in a world filled with omni-use technologies.
Study III operationalises a reframing of dual-use by introducing the Omni-Use Technology Continuum Taxonomy, a decision-making instrument constructed from academic and management literature, and semi-structured interview data and refined through expert validation. The taxonomy encodes ten criteria to evaluate technologies as well as businesses and thereby rendering evaluative assumptions transparent and decision rules auditable (Weking et al., 2020). It is designed to improve cross-stakeholder comparability in European settings and to relieve some of the constraints identified in study II, the funding constraints in particular.
Together, the three studies contribute towards a conceptual shift from dual-use to omni-use. They provide empirical evidence on European bottlenecks that co-produce the funding gap, and a practicable taxonomy that aligns with Europe’s industrial-policy trajectory and venture-ecosystem realities to support proportionate, transparent, and investment-relevant governance.