Periodic Reporting for period 2 - D.Rad (De-Radicalisation in Europe and Beyond: Detect, Resolve, Re-integrate)
Reporting period: 2021-12-01 to 2024-04-30
The first phase of the project has been an intensive working period for the whole Consortium. The cooperation between partners has run efficiently, and partners have worked hard in order to complete the large number of country reports submitted in the first year of the project.
During the reporting period, we have organised two project meetings: the kick-off meeting (3-4 December 2020, Online), and the annual project meetings (21-22 October 2021, London and 24 October Belgrade). Additionally, the steering committee had monthly online meetings (12) and work packages and task-force teams have organised regular meetings with the participation of involved partners. The Advisory Board members took part at the meeting at the kick-off and the London meeting in October.
While the consortium has carried out expert interviews for WP4 and WP5, the consortium ultimately was forced to delay primary data collection in the face of the pandemic for the second year. Nonetheless, over 65 expert interviews were conducted across the 16-countries of the consortium for WP4 reports – to map out the existing de-radicalisation legislation and associated programmes within each country. Currently, the consortium is finalizing its interview and recruitment strategy for the D.Rad youth and intervention work packages of the project.
The second phase of the project has been a challenging time for the D.Rad Consortium, with two partners (HHRO and YU) leaving. While the Consortium has submitted all its 56 deliverables in view of achieving the aims and objectives of the project, it had to revisit its intervention and exploitation of results strategy in effect to resolution and reintegration parts of the project as well as its cases. This was mainly due to the Covid pandemic that affected almost the first 18 months of the project as well as the war in Ukraine after the full-scale invasion of Russia, and the partners leaving the project. These three events made us to reassess the radicalisation cases that were originally considered as ethno-nationalist and separatist, jihadist, left-wing terrorism, right-wing terrorism. The hub strategy of D.Rad was also re-organised accordingly to accommodate this new reinterpreation (please see below). While we realised that both Covid-19 and climate change were becoming more likely to instigate polarisation and trigger radicalisation as a result before we submitted the application, only in the aftermath of starting the project we realised their full-scale impact.
During the reporting period, we have organised two project meetings: the kick-off meeting (3-4 December 2020, Online), and the annual project meetings (21-22 October 2021, London and 24 October Belgrade). Additionally, the steering committee had monthly online meetings (12) and work packages and task-force teams have organised regular meetings with the participation of involved partners. The Advisory Board members took part at the meeting at the kick-off and the London meeting in October.
While the consortium has carried out expert interviews for WP4 and WP5, the consortium ultimately was forced to delay primary data collection in the face of the pandemic for the second year. Nonetheless, over 65 expert interviews were conducted across the 16-countries of the consortium for WP4 reports – to map out the existing de-radicalisation legislation and associated programmes within each country. Currently, the consortium is finalizing its interview and recruitment strategy for the D.Rad youth and intervention work packages of the project.
The second phase of the project has been a challenging time for the D.Rad Consortium, with two partners (HHRO and YU) leaving. While the Consortium has submitted all its 56 deliverables in view of achieving the aims and objectives of the project, it had to revisit its intervention and exploitation of results strategy in effect to resolution and reintegration parts of the project as well as its cases. This was mainly due to the Covid pandemic that affected almost the first 18 months of the project as well as the war in Ukraine after the full-scale invasion of Russia, and the partners leaving the project. These three events made us to reassess the radicalisation cases that were originally considered as ethno-nationalist and separatist, jihadist, left-wing terrorism, right-wing terrorism. The hub strategy of D.Rad was also re-organised accordingly to accommodate this new reinterpreation (please see below). While we realised that both Covid-19 and climate change were becoming more likely to instigate polarisation and trigger radicalisation as a result before we submitted the application, only in the aftermath of starting the project we realised their full-scale impact.
The project is satisfied to have delivered 16 of our promised deliverables during the first year of the project which reflects a team effort across the international consortium. Despite the difficulties imposed by COVID-19, we have been successful in organizing monthly online team meetings (12 to date) and sharing responsibilities between partners to achieve the objectives set out. Additionally, we have published 32 blogs on our website.
With regards the milestones, the first year of the project has focused on the detection of trends: to identify the actors, networks, and wider social contexts driving radicalisation, especially in the emerging context of everyday polarisation over mundane issue in micro-spatial environments, in order to base interventions in evidence grounded in contemporary data and methodologies. This has been achieved in trends, stakeholders, legal and media and cultural aspects of radicalisation/deradicalization focused reports (WPs3-5).
During the second reporting period, alongside the activities that underlined much of D.Rad dissemination, we also created a syllabus for the teaching of de/radicalization based on D.Rad reports and offered it as a lasting legacy of the D.Rad project. The syllabus was co-created with the involvement of students as well to make sure that it lived up to the expectations of the young people in terms of what they expect from the teaching of radicalization. Furthermore, in view of working with the youth but also others, we have prioritized media literacy tools and emphasized the value of creative methods in view of mediating us vs them dichotomies and themes of radicalization. We curated and organized two exhibitions in Belgrade (originally planned for Amman but moved to Belgrade after the departure of the Jordanian partner) and Paris, created an interactive digital map which serves to visualize data from WPs 2,4, 6, 8 and 9 as well as building a digitized dataset for creative industries and popular culture as a means of building social cohesion. This dataset brings insight and talent from particularly non-European contexts covering Iraq, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Nepal, Brazil and Greece. We also delivered the D.Rad I-GAP survey in 16 countries including Jordan situating injustice-grievance-alienation-polarization related findings in view of radicalization in the national and cultural contexts for sixteen countries. We published country summaries to situate the findings within their respective sociopolitical and sociocultural contexts.
With regards the milestones, the first year of the project has focused on the detection of trends: to identify the actors, networks, and wider social contexts driving radicalisation, especially in the emerging context of everyday polarisation over mundane issue in micro-spatial environments, in order to base interventions in evidence grounded in contemporary data and methodologies. This has been achieved in trends, stakeholders, legal and media and cultural aspects of radicalisation/deradicalization focused reports (WPs3-5).
During the second reporting period, alongside the activities that underlined much of D.Rad dissemination, we also created a syllabus for the teaching of de/radicalization based on D.Rad reports and offered it as a lasting legacy of the D.Rad project. The syllabus was co-created with the involvement of students as well to make sure that it lived up to the expectations of the young people in terms of what they expect from the teaching of radicalization. Furthermore, in view of working with the youth but also others, we have prioritized media literacy tools and emphasized the value of creative methods in view of mediating us vs them dichotomies and themes of radicalization. We curated and organized two exhibitions in Belgrade (originally planned for Amman but moved to Belgrade after the departure of the Jordanian partner) and Paris, created an interactive digital map which serves to visualize data from WPs 2,4, 6, 8 and 9 as well as building a digitized dataset for creative industries and popular culture as a means of building social cohesion. This dataset brings insight and talent from particularly non-European contexts covering Iraq, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Nepal, Brazil and Greece. We also delivered the D.Rad I-GAP survey in 16 countries including Jordan situating injustice-grievance-alienation-polarization related findings in view of radicalization in the national and cultural contexts for sixteen countries. We published country summaries to situate the findings within their respective sociopolitical and sociocultural contexts.
For the second year we have already scheduled events, including a large consortium meeting to be held in Helsinki in June 2022. Our iGap survey is due to be launched shortly and we are excited to be moving in to the next phase of the research project. As we move through the second year, we will recruit participants for the intervention work packages and begin to test our initiatives across the countries of the project.
One of the largest challenges faced in the project thus far has been the termination of Yarmouk University (YU) from the D.Rad consortium. This has caused organizational difficulties and involved considerable bureaucratic work for the GCU team to facilitate the departure and consequent Amendment process required. This has taken almost a full year and still not fully resolved. The COVID- 19 pandemic has continued to pose difficulties to the project as we have been limited with regards to arranging physical meetings and conducting our research. To mitigate these challenges the lead has organized monthly steering committee meetings, online consortium meetings in May, June, September as well as in person meetings in London and Belgrade. Also, the consortium found an opportunity to talk to each other at D.Rad research days organized in line with the online launch for D3.1 and D3.2 as well as on occasions of D.Rad guest speakers.
The second phase of the D.Rad project consisted of the Resolve and Re-integrate part of D.Rad. We captured the meso-level stakeholders who are involved in processes of de-radicalisation both synchronically and historically. We established a working relationship with them and involved them in WP7-10 to achieve expert interviews and participatory workshops.
We developed re-conceptualisations of vulnerability, being de/radicalised, and othering using our I-GAP methodology examining exclusion and marginalisation as derivers of radicalisation and social inclusion informed methods as their resolution. The D.Rad project captured the macro-level drivers and examined laws and policies specifically fighting radicalisation; the broader legal, policy, and institutional contextual factors as having beneficial or negative impacts on radicalisation; and legal and policy integration measures targeting specifically radicalisation, and the policy-domains whereby radicalisation trends are embedded.
One of the largest challenges faced in the project thus far has been the termination of Yarmouk University (YU) from the D.Rad consortium. This has caused organizational difficulties and involved considerable bureaucratic work for the GCU team to facilitate the departure and consequent Amendment process required. This has taken almost a full year and still not fully resolved. The COVID- 19 pandemic has continued to pose difficulties to the project as we have been limited with regards to arranging physical meetings and conducting our research. To mitigate these challenges the lead has organized monthly steering committee meetings, online consortium meetings in May, June, September as well as in person meetings in London and Belgrade. Also, the consortium found an opportunity to talk to each other at D.Rad research days organized in line with the online launch for D3.1 and D3.2 as well as on occasions of D.Rad guest speakers.
The second phase of the D.Rad project consisted of the Resolve and Re-integrate part of D.Rad. We captured the meso-level stakeholders who are involved in processes of de-radicalisation both synchronically and historically. We established a working relationship with them and involved them in WP7-10 to achieve expert interviews and participatory workshops.
We developed re-conceptualisations of vulnerability, being de/radicalised, and othering using our I-GAP methodology examining exclusion and marginalisation as derivers of radicalisation and social inclusion informed methods as their resolution. The D.Rad project captured the macro-level drivers and examined laws and policies specifically fighting radicalisation; the broader legal, policy, and institutional contextual factors as having beneficial or negative impacts on radicalisation; and legal and policy integration measures targeting specifically radicalisation, and the policy-domains whereby radicalisation trends are embedded.