­Lars Hornuf presents current research in Oxford

On April 28, 2026, Prof. Lars Hornuf presented his research on public support for space funding in the context of geopolitical competition at the University of Oxford. The talk, entitled Space Funding and Geopolitical Competition: How Information Shapes Public Support, took place at St Antony's College as part of the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies and was hosted by Prof. Michael Rochlitz.

The paper, co-authored with Daniel Vrankar, examines how information about space budgets, geopolitical rivals and private companies shapes public support for space funding. A particular focus is on geopolitical comparative rhetoric, i.e. political arguments that justify higher space spending with reference to rival states. The study shows that this rhetoric can have a counterproductive effect: When citizens are confronted with the higher space budgets of geopolitical rivals, their support for increasing their own national space budget decreases. The paper also shows that citizens generally make little distinction between public space agencies and private companies. However, an important exception is the US, where support is significantly lower when public funding goes to private space companies rather than NASA.

The paper was previously presented in the joint Harvard Business School and European Space Policy Institute seminar series "Space Economics". The paper can be downloaded from the seminar series website.