MINDb4ACT – Developing skills and building a community of practice for innovative, ethical and effective actions against violent extremism

Coordinator:

• Royal Elcano Institute.

Partners:

• Real Instituto Elcano (ELCANO) – Spain;
• Agenfor International (AGENFOR) – Italy;
• Hochschule für den öffentlichen Dienst in Bayern (BayFHVR) – Germany;
• Ayuntamiento de Madrid (ADM) – Spain;
• Dansk Institut for Internationale Studier (DIIS) – Denmark;
• European Organisation for Security (EOS) – Belgium;
• Freie Universität Berlin (FUB) – Germany;
• Fondation pour la recherche stratégique (FRS) – France;
• Ministerio del interior (MoHA ESP) – Spain;
• Polish Platform for Homeland Security (PPHS) – Poland;
• Poliisiammattikorkeakoulu (POLAMK) – Finland;
• Regional Police Headquarters in Poznan – Poland;
• Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) – Great Britain;
• Sheffield Hallam University (CENTRIC) – Great Britain;
• SYNYO GmbH (SYNYO) – Austria;
• Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) – Belgium;
• Frauen ohne Grenzen – Women without borders/Save – Sisters against violent extremism gemeinnutziger verein (WOMEN) – Austria;
• Ministero della giustizia (MoJ IT) – Italy.

Description of the project:

MINDb4ACT is a collaborative, international project coordinated by the Spanish Royal Elcano Institute and participated by 19 partners based in 10 Member States (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Spain, Germany, Poland, United Kingdom, and Italy). The project is financed by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 Programme. MINDb4ACT started in September 2017 and will continue until August 2020.

The project will align its research priorities with some of the most relevant issues already identified by the European Commission:

1. Priority 1. Systematizing the available knowledge and expertise to support strategic decision-making;
2. Priority 2. Enhancing interdisciplinary fieldwork on terrorists’ recruiting grounds, socialization techniques;
3. Priority 3. Using big data in order to analyze the information related to the communication practices of violent radicalization;
4. Priority 4. Improving existing links between academia including non-EU researchers, policy-makers and other stakeholders.

MINDb4ACT will contribute to such priorities for the improvement of current counter-violent extremism policies (CVEs) in the countries represented in the consortium (Austria, Belgium Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy Poland, Spain and United Kingdom) and the generation of new ones connecting through collaboration ecosystems (innovative, open, participatory, user-centred environments) to co-design interventions such as research actions, exchanges, strategic-policy exercises, training courses and pilot projects based on social innovation and civic engagement schemes.

All actions will be developed in 5 specific domains: prisons and judiciary system; migration hotspots and asylum centres, schools, cities (peri-urban contexts) and the Internet and media. A special contribution of the project will be the integration of technology based practical solutions with the contribution of the industry.

As mentioned in the call, MINDb4ACT will NOT be “focused on studying the phenomenon of radicalization” but focused on “developing policy recommendations and practical solutions for end-users”.

More information about MINDb4ACT can be found here.