Munich, Germany – On August 24, 2026, Mauritz Kop taught an overview session on the Quantum-ELSPI framework for students at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), together with Urs Gasser, Rector of the Hochschule für Politik München and Dean of the TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology, and Fabienne Marco, Head of the Quantum Social Lab at the TUM Think Tank. The session's teaching materials gave the students a working map of the ethical, legal, socio-economic, and policy implications of quantum technology, and of the governance tools that turn those implications into daily practice.
Three Munich Encounters Since 2023
The session continues a collaboration that took shape at the inaugural Festival of Ideas at TUM's Raitenhaslach Monastery in November 2023, where Gasser moderated the closing quantum use-case session and Kop performed a live quantum-art demonstration. In January 2025, the International Quantum Forum at TUM, organized by Marco's Quantum Social Lab, hosted Kop's keynote on responsible quantum governance during the UN International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. Gasser and Kop also co-authored, with Eline de Jong, "A call for responsible quantum technology" in Nature Physics.
Four Pillars, One Governance Stack
The Quantum-ELSPI framework, co-developed by Kop and philosopher Luciano Floridi, structures the field around four pillars: Ethical, Legal, Socio-economic, and Policy Implications. The materials set out why quantum technology needs this dedicated lens: the dual-use dilemma across simulation, sensing, and computing; the harvest-now-decrypt-later threat, where a future quantum computer running Shor's algorithm would read traffic that adversaries copy today; and supply chains concentrated in rare materials, cryogenic systems, and photonic components.
The framework grounds Responsible Quantum Technology (RQT) and its working tools: Quantum Impact Assessments, dual-use controls, technical standards, and certification metrics. The LSI test asks whether a security measure is least-trade-restrictive, security-sufficient, and innovation-preserving at the same time, and the Quantum Criticality Index scores supply-chain nodes on vulnerability, substitutability, and bottleneck risk.
Use Cases as the Students' Next Step
The teaching notes end in an assignment of method: map quantum use cases sector by sector — medicine, defense, finance, automotive, logistics, cleantech — and build sector-specific governance on the horizontal principles for responsible quantum innovation. Kop's message to the students doubles as a message to policymakers: those who understand where quantum technology is heading carry the responsibility to steer it toward broadly shared prosperity.
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