'If we're going to have ambition, it should be big': NCITE and CREST Host Inaugural IAPSS Meeting in London

LONDON — The researchers, all hailing from different parts of the world, walked to a wall at the back of the room, holding papers brimming with text. One by one, they taped them up, creating a patchwork of some of the world’s most pressing security challenges.

New and Emerging Threats. Youth Radicalisation. Information Integrity and Misinformation. And so on.

They arranged these sheets in a timeline from left to right, visualising these research priorities from short- to long-term. Perhaps unsurprisingly for anyone in this line of work, most wound up on the left.

So, it was fortunate that this hotel conference room happened to be packed with some of the world’s leading minds studying terrorism and violent extremism.

The exercise marked the second day of the inaugural International Academic Partnerships for Science and Security (IAPSS) meeting, held March 5-6 in London. The meeting drew more than 60 attendees from 17 research centres across 12 countries to answer two important questions: What problems do our nations share? And how can we work together to solve them?

This international consortium, to be held annually, is part of a collaborative effort between the U.S.’s National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center (NCITE), and the U.K.’s Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST) to develop and support IAPSS. The initiative is funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate for the first three years.

Inspired by the 5 Country Research and Development (5RD) network’s collaboration on counterterrorism and terrorism prevention research, the IAPSS consortium is meant to serve the broader international research community. The 5RD network pulls in academics in allied countries to exchange knowledge and work collaboratively on problems that transcend national borders.

To do this, NCITE and CREST worked together to hold an inaugural meeting in London. The meeting featured an international guest list of representatives involved in academic research in counterterrorism and terrorism prevention.

We’re dealing with multiple countries’ priorities ... The thing that I’ve found that ties it all together is rigorous scientific inquiry.

In opening remarks, NCITE and CREST Directors Gina Ligon and Stacey Conchie, respectively, outlined IAPSS's underlying goal: To build an academic network that can help countries be proactive in preventing and responding to violent extremist attacks.

“All of the countries included here today are at risk for violent extremism,” Ligon said, speaking of the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland. All were represented by an audience of academics and government practitioners.

Led by seasoned government workshop facilitator Tim Morley, attendees spent two days engaging in exercises designed to spark productive discussion and build relationships. They worked together in groups – regularly switching partners – discussing potential research agendas and practical objectives for IAPSS.

“We’re dealing with multiple countries’ priorities,” said Rik Legault, senior advisor for social and behavioural sciences to DHS. “The thing that I’ve found that ties it all together is rigorous scientific inquiry.”

Working together, the assembled teams identified several key research interests shared across borders, such as:

• Developing structures to identify and prioritise new and emerging threats
• The risk of youth radicalisation
• Shared data collection and repositories
• Identification of risk and protective factors across countries and time periods

They also identified several common challenges in their work, including access to data, a lack of shared definitions among the international research community, and the difficulty in keeping pace with a rapidly changing technology landscape.

The teams emerged with several practical initiatives to move IAPSS forward in the coming years, including the development of the IAPSS website, regular meetings and webinars, and the publication of the inaugural IAPSS Review magazine.

But some of the most important initiatives to emerge from the conference centre on building the next generation of terrorism scholars.

“We are really passionate about early career researcher development,” Conchie said.

The IAPSS audience included 11 early-career researchers (ECRs) – scholars studying for or within 10 years of receiving their PhD. – from eight different countries. Their number included researchers like Lotta Rahlf of the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) in Germany whose research interests deal with evaluating measures to prevent and counter violent extremism.

“Since I am doing a comparative study for my PhD., it was great to meet practitioners and policymakers from different countries – not just in the E.U., where I’m focusing on, but also beyond that – and find out which people I can connect to further my research goals,” Rahlf said.

Following recommendations from the attendees, the IAPSS team will soon launch an Early Career Researcher Grant Program, aimed at helping ECRs collaborate and share their research internationally.

The project team has also established bursaries to help ECRs attend conferences and other events.

...it was great to meet practitioners and policymakers from different countries ... and find out which people I can connect to further my research goals.

On the second day of the inaugural event, another ECR, James Lewis, PhD., a research fellow at CREST, said he was excited for the opportunity to network with both new and experienced academics.

“The breadth of the network is amazing,” he said. “I’m really hoping it continues, and I get the opportunity to engage in this moving forward.”

It was a sentiment shared by many as the event drew to a close.

Near the end of Day 2, Morley asked the audience to share their thoughts on the event and their hopes for IAPSS moving forward. Tim Legrand, PhD., of Australia’s Social Science and Intelligence Research Network (SSiReN), took the mic.

“I feel like there’s an opportunity for IAPSS to be the peak international body for research and government collaboration on violent extremism,” he said. “If we’re going to have ambition, it should be big.”