British varsity to head major project to research radicalisation, religious fundamentalism

LONDON: University of Manchester in northern England announced Friday it will lead a US$5.4 million major international project to research radicalisation and religious fundamentalism, China’s Xinhua news agency reported.

The four-year project titled ‘Dialogue about Radicalisation and Equality’(DARE) will explore how and why young people become radicalised and will collaborate with 15 partners in 13 countries. These include Belgium, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Malta, Norway, Poland, Russia, the Netherlands, Tunisia, Turkey and Britain.

Funded under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 framework, DARE will investigate young people’s encounters with messages and agents of radicalisation, how they receive and respond to those calls, and how they make choices about the paths they take.

The focus of the research would be people aged 12 to 30, a key target group for recruiters. A spokesperson said DARE would “approach young people neither as victims nor perpetrators of radicalization, but as engaged, reflexive, often passionate social actors who seek information they can trust, as they navigate a world in which calls to radicalization are numerous.”

Researchers will focus on environments in which radicalization messages are found, rather than terrorist events or individuals. By observing everyday encounters, researchers will be able to study people who hold radical ideas without becoming extremists, and thus help to understand what pushes others across the threshold into violence.