Roman Kernchen is currently Scientific Director at Eyvor Institute in Hamburg, Germany. He has long standing experience in strategic foresight, technology option assessment, and security studies. He has also subject matter expertise in CBRN defence technologies.
Roman previously held permanent academic positions at German Aerospace Centre (DLR) and Fraunhofer-Institute for Technological Trend Analysis. During this time he has been responsible for the scientific oversight of two BMBF (Federal Ministry of Education and Research) research funding programs on Bioanalog Information Technologies and Bioelectronics in the ‘Intelligent Systems’ funding area. Later, he was involved for many years in planning and decision support for the armaments department of the German Federal Ministry of Defense (BMVg) and was responsible for conducting long-term technological forecasting studies and assessment of technological options in the field of biodefense, sensor technologies, and artificial intelligence. In this role, he was involved in a number of national and international study projects for NATO, the European Commission, the German Federal Criminal Police, and the OECD, among others.
His current research interests centre around the investigation of security-related framework conditions for innovation. Topics of interest include the governance of emerging technologies; counter-terrorism technologies and terrorist innovation; and the military and climate change.
Roman has been Lecturer at the NATO Advanced Study Institute (ASI) for Biodefence in Tashkent, Uzbekistan and spent several research visits, among others at SPRU (Science Policy Research Unit), University of Sussex and Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
He holds a Diploma degree in Biology (equivalent to Master of Science) with special emphasis on Bioinformatics and Neurobiology and a Ph.D. (Dr.rer.nat.) from Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University, Bonn, and a state-approved Certificate in Business Administration with a focus on Strategic Management from Hagen University.
Climate change is a major challenge for society, particularly in terms of its capacity to take individual and collective decisions that will enable appropriate responses to address it. In many respects, it differs from other environmental problems facing modern civilization in its time scale and...
The global migratory dynamics and movement of commodities has increased the risk of biosecurity threats and their potential to incur large economic, social, and environmental costs. Infectious disease outbreaks, whether natural or deliberate, respect neither geographic nor political borders. As a result of rising numbers...
The production and utilisation of foresight knowledge, such as prognoses, scenarios, outlooks and narratives about possible futures, has become an eminent feature of the action at the interface of life sciences and society and a subject of increasing interest in scientific and technological studies. In...
The recent successive infectious disease outbreaks (West Nile virus in North America, Chikungunya virus in the Indian Ocean, Ebola virus in West Africa, and Zika virus in America) and the concomitant fear of bioterrorism have stimulated a growing reinforcement of biosecurity and biodefence measures. At...
Many defence companies are already taking pro-active steps to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy consumption, and help customers do the same. Several key trends are driving increased pressure on manufacturers to take a more strategic approach to improving product environmental performance, starting with...
Corrosion of military platforms or their components is an enormous matter, that affects both economic and safety issues and is becoming more prominent as the acquisition of new equipment slows down and more reliance is placed on modifications and upgrades to extend the life of...
In recent years, many nations have developed and implemented green solutions for defence. Optimisation of energy, water and waste management are current focal areas of such efforts, together with catalysing developments of more environmentally conscious materials and munitions. Yet the military is currently engaged in...