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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TRIVALENT (Terrorism pReventIon Via rAdicaLisation countEr-NarraTive)

Teaser

1.1 Summary of the context and overall objectives of the projectTerror violence in Europe, increasingly perceived by the public opinion as a lingering threat, pose a series of new challenges to European institutions and Member States in terms of internal security, cohesion and...

Summary

1.1 Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project
Terror violence in Europe, increasingly perceived by the public opinion as a lingering threat, pose a series of new challenges to European institutions and Member States in terms of internal security, cohesion and social stability. To successfully contrast such challenges it is necessary to develop responses that combine security with innovative preventive policies and practices.
TRIVALENT project aims at contributing to a holistic view on such challenges, whose focus is a model assessment of the radicalisation process coupled with a three-layers prevention strategy: Predict to Prevent; Communicate to Prevent; Good Policing & Community Engagement to Prevent (“Trivalent Trilogy”).
TRIVALENT consortium is made up by a majority of Law Enforcement Agencies, at national and local level, in addition to academic partners, and expert partners, all together from 10 different countries. This composite nature of TRIVALENT consortium makes of TRIVALENT a project especially suited to develop an idea of prevention based on balancing securitarian with communitarian approach.

Work performed

1.2 Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far
The research activities so far developed can be thus summarized.
WP2 (“Understanding the drivers of radicalization”) brought out a thorough review of most recent literature on radicalisation since 2014 (D2.1), as a basic premise in view of developing a multi-factor model of radicalisation. Further, an in-depth analysis on root-causes and specific characteristics of radicalisation, leading to violence, has been carried out, based on two surveys: (D2.2) with LEA officials; and (D2.3) with experts. Both resulting in an assessment that points to the relevance of the social background and network variables. This analysis has been integrated with a framework assessment of internal structure and organisational connections within and between radical groups (D 2.4).
WP3 (“Analysis of radical narratives on-line and off-line”), by exploring different social theories on radicalisation in addition to different computational models aimed to detect and predict radicalisation, proposes a new methodological multidisciplinary approach to bridge the gap between these disciplines (D3.1). These studies allow to develop a semantic engine customised on the basis of linguistic resources (D2.2), further enriched via annotations methodology based on offline data sources (D3.3), coupled with the development of a classifier as proof-of-concept showing the possibility to exploit machine learning techniques in the recognition of violent narratives spread on social media (D3.4). The end outcome will be the design of a predictive software service on the dissemination of violent extremist content on social media, evaluated with LEA partners.
WP 4 (“Counter-narratives against radicalization”), aimed at developing a communication strategy for prevention, started with a study on the “narratives” promoted by radical groups, their dissemination machine and target audience (D4.1). Main results highlight the issue on how extremist narratives are spread, and especially on how the web provides all sort of extremist organizations with an invaluable and dangerous tool. It clearly emerges that social media platforms serve as a “force multiplier”. Further steps (D4.2 and D4.3) will be therefore focusing on the methodology approach as regards the importance of building communication formats, addressing real needs of an “ideal reader”.
WP 5 (“New policies and tools for tackling radicalization”), approaching the side of prevention from a policy viewpoint, provided so far a thorough comparative analysis of existing counter-radicalisation policies (D5.1), whose results have paved the way to frame a set of policy recommendations (D5.2). Furthermore, gaps and relevant barriers characterising the current relationship between LEAs and civil society have been analysed (D5.3), in order to design suitable cooperation means between LEAs and civil society (T5.4), whose implementation will be supported and facilitated by the adoption of IT communication tools (T5.5), to uphold and strengthen civil society engagement in the fight against violent extremism.
WP 6 (New skills for LEAs and practitioners in the field”) carried out a desktop research on the concept of community policing, and gathered inputs from LEA partners through a dedicated questionnaire, coordinating furthermore the first two workshops of a series of four to be held to promote LEAs participation. In addition interviews with high level experts and relevant civil society stakeholders have been conducted (D6.1). Building on these results, further steps aimed to recover such gap will be directed to develop a manual, describing the competencies and skills required by LEA practitioners (T6.2). The insights thus acquired, integrated with those resulting from other relevant WP activities, will contribute to frame a training curriculum (pilot course) directed at train

Final results

1.3 Progress beyond the state of the art, expected results until the end of the project and potential impacts (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)
The idea of prevention is at the core of a paradigm shift from a more conventional securitarian approach towards a more suitable communitarian approach involving: predictive means and technologies, based on joining social science theories and definitions with computational models, as regards the feasibility of IT tools capable to forecast possible risk scenarios represented by the influence of violent extremist contents on social media; communicative strategies focused on narrative formats aimed to empowering prevention awareness, and targeted for specific contexts and publics; and community-oriented policing, based on partnership, trust building and problem solving, to be implemented through new skills guidelines and training-the-trainers programmes for LEAs and other front-line operators, as well as civil society and community actors.
On this background, main expected results are:
- multi-dimensional model aimed at better understanding the factors (causes and drivers) leading to violent extremism, in its multifarious typologies;
- IT tools for identifying the spread of violent radical narratives on social media;
- improving/developing new skills and competencies of LEAs, and integrate them in pilot training courses;
- developing IT tools to foster communication/cooperation between LEAs and civil society;
- providing policy recommendations basically focused on preventative measures and cooperative efforts involving all relevant actors.

Website & more info

More info: http://trivalent-project.eu.