Mümin Ahmedoğlu

Mümin Ahmedoğlu

Mümin Ahmedoğlu is a Doctoral Researcher at the University of Vienna’s Department of Business Decisions and Analytics and holds a Master’s degree in Management and Technology from the Technical University of Munich (TUM), specializing in innovation economics. His research explores the economics of defense procurement and innovation in the European Union, focusing on how industrial asymmetries, sovereignty constraints, and institutional mechanisms—such as the European Defence Fund (EDF) and PESCO—affect coordination, efficiency, and strategic outcomes in joint defense projects. By combining contract theory, quantitative analysis, and policy research, his work advances understanding of the economic and institutional foundations of European defense and their implications for strategic autonomy, innovation policy, and international security cooperation.

Researcher in Researcher in Economics of Defense Procurement

I am Mümin Ahmedoğlu, a doctoral researcher at the University of Vienna’s Department of Business Decisions and Analytics and a graduate of the Master’s program in Management and Technology at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). My academic work lies at the intersection of defense procurement, institutional economics, and innovation policy, combining formal modeling with empirical analysis to study how European institutions coordinate complex, multi-country defense projects.

My current research focuses on the coordination and efficiency of defense procurement in the European Union, examining how industrial asymmetries, sovereignty constraints, and institutional mechanisms—such as the European Defence Fund (EDF) and PESCO—influence cooperation, innovation, and policy outcomes. More broadly, I am interested in the political economy of defense innovation, the industrial foundations of strategic autonomy, and the design of efficient policy mechanisms in security and technology domains.

Beyond my doctoral work, I have studied comparative defense policy, the civilian adaptation of military technologies (UAVs), and the global dynamics of defense spending and innovation. My approach integrates contract theory, econometric modeling, and data-driven analysis to bridge theoretical insights with policy relevance.

I am fluent in Arabic, English, and Turkish, and currently advancing my German, which supports my engagement in international and interdisciplinary research environments. My goal is to contribute to a more coherent understanding of how analytical and economic perspectives can improve defense cooperation and policy design in Europe.

Current Research Projects

  • Coordination Problems in EU Defense Procurement: A Common Agency and Contract Theory Analysis: My doctoral research investigates how European Union member states coordinate defense procurement and spending within institutional frameworks such as the European Defence Fund (EDF) and PESCO. The project applies common agency and contract theory to examine how industrial asymmetries, sovereignty constraints, and divergent national interests shape efficiency, innovation, and policy outcomes in joint defense projects. Combining theoretical modeling with empirical analysis of EDF project data and case studies (e.g., Eurodrone), the research seeks to develop evidence-based insights for improving coordination and institutional design in European defense cooperation.

  • Synchronized Politics: Time, Power, and Policy Coordination in the European Union (SYNCPOL): As a Graduate Research Assistant at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, I contribute to the ERC Advanced Grant project SYNCPOL: Synchronized Politics – Multiple Times and Political Power, led by Prof. Klaus H. Goetz. The project investigates how temporal structures—such as urgency, foresight, and sequencing—shape power dynamics and policy coordination across EU institutions. My role focuses on quantitatively modeling how time-related political language influences multi-level governance in the domains of migration and defense. This involves the semantic scaling of political speeches from the European Commission, Parliament, and Council using advanced NLP techniques, including fine-tuned Sentence-BERT models, dynamic embeddings, and PCA-based ideological mapping.

  • From the Periphery to the Centre? Czech and Turkish Ambition in NATO’s Airspace Industry: In collaboration with Dr. Bohuslav Pernica, this comparative study assesses the ambitions of Czechia and Turkey within NATO’s airspace industry, particularly focusing on their respective military training jets—the L-39 NG and TAI Hürjet. The research explores how each country leverages its industrial base and government support to develop, produce, and export these advanced pilot training jets designed for the 4th–5th generation supersonic Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MRCA). The study includes a detailed analysis of the involvement and strategic support by both governments in these projects, providing insights into how smaller NATO members can influence and integrate into the broader alliance’s defense capabilities.

Completed Research Projects

  • EU Defense Discourse and Institutional Dynamics: For my Master’s thesis at the Technical University of Munich (School of Management, Chair of Economics of Innovation, supervised by Dr. David Angenendt), I conducted the first comprehensive quantitative study of European Union institutional discourse on defense cooperation and strategic autonomy from 2000 to 2024. Employing a multi-method approach that combined computational text analysis, panel data econometrics, and time-series methods, the project analyzed 6.41 million sentences from European Commission and European Parliament communications. Transformer-based models classified defense-related content with 98.4% accuracy, allowing the identification of four distinct discourse dimensions: defense emphasis, joint capability promotion, sovereignty-oriented framing, and threat justification.

Research Interests

My work sits at the intersection of defense procurement, innovation policy, and institutional design, with a focus on how Europe can coordinate complex, multi-country programs efficiently while still spurring innovation and safeguarding strategic information.

  • Defense Procurement & Multi-Goal Design: How EU buyers balance three objectives in joint programs—security of military/strategic information, innovation performance, and economic growth/competitiveness—and how procurement instruments (PCP, PIS, Innovation Partnerships) can be structured to deliver on all three.

  • Coordination under Asymmetry (EDF, PESCO): How industrial capability gaps between small and large member states and divergent budget logics (NATO 2%, EDA benchmarks) shape collaboration, burden sharing, and “spend more, spend better, spend European.”

  • Common-Agency & Contract Theory for Joint Programs: Applying common-agency and mechanism-design approaches to model multi-principal procurement (follow-on contracts, bundling vs. unbundling R&D/production, award criteria, negotiation vs. auction) and mitigate hold-up, lock-in, and foreclosure risks.

  • Innovation Effects of Public Procurement: When and how public procurement triggers firm-level innovation (vs. incremental diffusion), the role of buyer capabilities, and how design choices (technology-neutral vs. specific tenders) alter incentives.

  • Strategic Investment & Industrial Base: The political economy of sustained, multi-year defense investment and joint procurement as pillars of Europe’s defense-industrial capacity and strategic autonomy.

Methods: Contract/game theory, multi-attribute optimization for procurement trade-offs, and empirical analysis (panel econometrics on EDF/PESCO data; comparative case studies such as Eurodrone), complemented by text-as-data on institutional discourse.

Academic Background

Ph.D. in Business Decisions and Analytics, University of Vienna (ongoing): My doctoral research focuses on the coordination and efficiency of defense procurement in the European Union, analyzing how industrial asymmetries, sovereignty constraints, and institutional mechanisms—such as the European Defence Fund (EDF) and PESCO—influence cooperation, innovation, and policy outcomes. The program includes advanced coursework in Contract Theory, Game Theory, Decision Sciences, Industrial Organization, and Econometrics for Policy Analysis.

M.Sc. Management and Technology, Technical University of Munich: My major is Economics, Policy, and Innovation, with a technology focus on Computer Engineering.

Thesis Topic: “ EU Defense Discourse and Institutional Dynamics: A Computational Analysis of European Commission and European Parliament Rhetoric and Their Drivers (2000–2024)”

Research Papers:

  • Politics of Innovation & Technology: “Determinants of Defense Technology Innovation: A Comparative Analysis of Economic, Geopolitical, and Policy Factors Across Leading and Emerging Nations”

  • Economics of Innovation: “Military Innovation vs. Operations: How Arms Trade, Technological Capacity, and Economic Strength Shape PESCO Participation”

  • Innovation, Society, and Public Policy: “Balancing Act: Innovation, Society, and Defense Policy – A Comparative Analysis of Turkey and Germany”

  • Technology Governance and the Regulatory State: “Regulatory Challenges of Eurodrone Under PESCO and EU Strategic Autonomy: A Techno-Securitization Perspective”

  • Economic and Political Spaces of Innovation: “Defense Innovation and Strategic Autonomy in Czechia: Socio-Technical Imaginaries and Security Narratives”

  • Current Issues in Technology Management: “Unlocking Dual-Use Potential: The Case for Military Drone Adaptation in Civilian Sectors”

During my studies, I have taken several relevant courses, including:

Innovation, Technology, and Strategy:

  • Innovation and Technology Management in Practice
  • Value-based Business Strategy & Innovation
  • Applied Strategy and Organization
  • Economic and Political Spaces of Innovation
  • Economics of Innovation
  • Politics of Innovation and Technology
  • Innovation, Society, and Public Policy

Governance, Policy, and Regulation:

  • Technology Governance and the Regulatory State
  • Introduction to Science and Technology Policy
  • Advanced Topics in Comparative and International Political Economy

Data, Research, and Quantitative Methods:

  • Empirical Research in Management and Economics
  • Introduction to Bayesian Data Analysis
  • Quantitative Research Proposals: Developing an Empirical Research Project
  • Applied Statistics and Econometrics
  • Risk Theory and Modeling

Programming and Visualization:

  • Data Analysis and Visualization in R
  • Introduction to Programming

B.Sc. Industrial Engineering, Middle East Technical University: I specialized in systems design and developed my bachelor’s thesis on improving sales processes through an offline case decision support system design.

During my studies, I have taken several relevant courses, including:

  • Introduction to Probability
  • Introduction to Statistics
  • Statistical Linear Models
  • Introduction to Data Mining
  • Linear Programming
  • Network Flows And Integer Programming
  • Stochastic Models in Operations Research
  • Simulation
  • Introduction to Combinatorial Analysis
  • Systems Thinking
  • Decision Analysis
  • Principles Of Economics I
  • Principles Of Economics II
  • Engineering Economy
  • Financial Engineering
  • Scientific Computing for Industrial Engineering

Professional Experience

University of Vienna – Vienna: Doctoral Researcher, Department of Business Decisions and Analytics

Conducting PhD research and teachning activities on coordination and efficiency in European Union defense procurement, focusing on how industrial asymmetries, sovereignty constraints, and institutional mechanisms such as the European Defence Fund (EDF) and PESCO influence joint defense projects and innovation outcomes. Combining contract theory, game-theoretic modeling, and empirical analysis of EDF project data and case studies (e.g., Eurodrone) to generate policy-relevant insights for improving cooperation and institutional design in European defense.

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität – Munich: Graduate Research Assistant, SYNCPOL (ERC Advanced Grant)

Quantitatively modeling how time-related political language (urgency, duration, foresight) structures multi-level policy coordination in EU migration and public health domains. Conducting semantic scaling of political speeches across EU institutions using Python, fine-tuned Sentence-BERT, dynamic embeddings, and PCA-based ideological positioning.

Siemens – Munich: P&O Transformation Strategy Working Student

Contributing to strategic people and organization transformation projects by developing data-driven concepts aligned with Siemens’ People Strategy for Germany. Supporting data strategy implementation through the analysis of people-related datasets, dashboard creation, and promotion of data-informed solutions for the future of work.

STM – Ankara: Project Engineer

Managed technical and R&D projects related to tactical mini UAV systems for defense use, including KARGU, BOYGA, ALPAGU, and TOGAN.

TUM Venture Labs – Munich: Technology Infrastructure Graduate Working Student

Aligned technology infrastructure with startup needs, automated the startup journey, and facilitated resource connections within TUM Venture Labs.

Siemens Advanta Solutions – Munich: Strategy, Digitalization, and Sustainability Working Student

Collaborated on sustainability-driven strategic initiatives and supported regional projects.

TUM School of Management – Munich: IT Management and Enterprise Processes Working Student

Involved in IT process design, optimization, and agile project management.

Allianz SE – Munich: Group IT Strategy and Management Working Student

Managed the Enterprise Architecture Repository, led CIO communications, and supported IT transformation initiatives.