The Project

The Heidelberg Hybrid Threat Indicator (HTI) was developed between December 2023 and May 2024 as part of a transfer project at Heidelberg University, funded by the German Foundation for Peace Research (DSF) under the title “Evidence-Based Analysis of Hybrid Threats.” The project aimed to gain entirely new insights into the actor structures, instruments, phases, and intensities of hybrid threats by combining innovative event datasets and using the latest methods of empirical social research. To achieve this goal, we worked closely with Traversals GmbH and the European Repository of Cyber Incidents (EuRepoC).

The Team

Sebastian Harnisch is Professor of International Relations and Foreign Policy at Heidelberg University. His research interests include Comparative Foreign and Security Policy, Theories of International Relations, Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Cybersecurity Policy. He led the project as the responsible Principal Investigator.

Jonas Hemmelskamp is a research associate at the European Repository of Cyber Incidents (EuRepoC). In his Master’s thesis “Towards A Hybrid Threat Indicator,” he laid the conceptual and methodological foundations for the HTI, thus making hybrid threats measurable for the first time. He was a student assistant in this project.

Paul Esser is a post-grad student at Heidelberg University. The conceptualisation of ambiguity and its phases in hybrid conflict in his BA thesis provided the first starting points for the theoretical foundation of the HTI. He was a student assistant in this project.