Dr Ralph Hammer, born 6 September 1976 in Graz, Austria, is Head of the Austrian delegation to the European Security Research Programme “Secure Societies” in Horizon 2020 and Director of the Staff Department for Security Research and Technology Transfer, in Charge of the Austrian security research programme KIRAS, the Austrian defence research programme FORTE and the brand new Austrian cybersecurity research programme Kybernet-Pass (K-PASS) of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF). After his military service and a stint as a civil servant trainee at various Austrian courts he joined the Federal services in 2007.

Ralph Hammer studied law at the Karl-Franzens University Graz with a specialization in international law and obtained the degree of “Doctor iuris”(PhD) for his thesis “Definition and the Fight against the New International Terrorism as a Challenge for Public International Law” in 2005. He is also a graduate “with Honors” of the 42nd Diploma programme of the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna.