Doctoral Examination

Apr 24, 2022·
Jens Hunhevicz
Jens Hunhevicz
· 2 min read

This achievement would not have been possible without the many people who have helped me along the way. I would like to thank my supervisors, examiners, colleagues, students, family and friends for their support.

The thesis is entitled “Exploring the Potential of Blockchain and Cryptoeconomics for the Construction Industry”. Overall, it outlines and investigates blockchain as a technology to enable new forms of incentives and organisation in the construction industry in the long term, using smart contracts to encode institutional coordination1. It extends the state of the art research on blockchain for construction management with both novel theoretical work and proof of concepts.

First, the thesis assesses the need for blockchain by matching the technical capabilities of blockchain with proposed use cases in the construction industry2. It also outlines how cryptoeconomic mechanisms align with the overall structure of the industry, and conceptualises how they can be applied to collaborative project delivery through the lens of Common Pool Resource theory3.

Secondly, the prototypes demonstrate new possibilities for blockchain-based cross-phase and cross-trade incentive mechanisms4, but also aspects of cryptoeconomic mechanisms for economic machine participation with no1s1 - a self-owned house5.

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Celebration at Nelly’s with the research group after the defense.


  1. JJ Hunhevicz, T Dounas, DM Hall; “The Promise of Blockchain for the Construction Industry: A Governance Lens”; Springer / ResearchGate; 2022. ↩︎

  2. JJ Hunhevicz, DM Hall; “Do you need a blockchain in construction? Use case categories and decision framework for DLT design options”; Advanced Engineering Informatics; 2020. ↩︎

  3. JJ Hunhevicz, PA Brasey, MMM Bonanomi, DM Hall, M Fischer; “Applications of Blockchain for the Governance of Integrated Project Delivery: A Crypto Commons Approach”; arXiv Preprint; 2022. ↩︎

  4. JJ Hunhevicz, M Mahshid, DM Hall; “Digital Building Twins and Blockchain for Performance-Based (Smart) Contracts”; Automation in Construction; 2022. ↩︎

  5. JJ Hunhevicz, H Wang, L Hess, DM Hall; “no1s1 - A Blockchain-Based DAO Prototype for Autonomous Space”; EC3 Proceedings; YouTube; 2021. ↩︎