A consortium of researchers dedicated to improving the understanding of the human causes and consequences of terrorism

START News: Terrorist attacks on educational institutions; AQAM financial and material support schemes

FEATURED RESEARCH

Terrorist Attacks on Educational Institutions

In light of December’s attack on a public school in Peshawar, Pakistan, Global Terrorism Database program manager Erin Miller compiled a background report on attacks of a similar nature. Data show that the Peshawar attack was highly unusual in its lethality. Read more.

Report Examines Financial Crime and Material Support Schemes

“Financial Crime and Material Support Schemes Linked to al-Qa’ida and Affiliated Movements (AQAM) in the United States: 1990 to June 2014” dissects 150 incidents to determine who commits these crimes and why they do it. Read more.

Updates from the Profiles of Individual Radicalization in the United States (PIRUS) Project

An updated research brief and fact sheet representing the latest wave of data from START’s PIRUS project are now available. The project is a dataset of Islamist, Far Left and Far Right individuals who have radicalized to violent and non-violent extremism in the United States since World War II. Read more.


DISCUSSION POINT

Hindsight Not 20/20 for Smallpox Research

Dr. Gigi Kwik Gronvall, Senior Associate at the UPMC Center for Health Security and Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School Of Medicine, writes this month’s discussion point about the importance of investing in “dual-use” research. Read more.

Putting Terrorism in Context: Lessons from the Global Terrorism Database (Contemporary Terrorism Studies)

Routledge Publishing

Miller, Erin, and Gary LaFree, Laura Dugan

Europeanisation and Social Movements: Before and After the Great Recession

Palgrave Macmillan

della Porta, Donatella and Louisa Parks


START NEWS

START to Host New Series of Training Opportunities

John Stevenson will lead training workshops in March on the University of Maryland campus. Read more or Register Now.

New Study Abroad Program in Singapore to Focus on CVE and Deradicalization

“Singapore: Countering Violent Extremism and Deradicalization” is set to launch in the summer of 2015. Read more or Apply here.

START’s MOOC, Revised and Updated, Launches Successfully

Over 19,000 students from 180 countries have enrolled in “Understanding Terrorism and the Terrorist Threat.” Read more or Register now.

Anthony Lemieux Named Associate Director of Global Studies Institute

Dr. Lemieux, Georgia State University professor and START investigator, to head new program focused on international relations. Read more.

Tall Ambitions from the START

Intern Stephanie Choi finds a way to combine her passion for science with her Asian heritage. Read more.


EVENTS

William Braniff: Al Qaeda’s Jihadism – ISIL’s Jihadism: The Making and Remaking of a Modern Ideology. 6:00 p.m. Feb. 4 in Baltimore.

Training Workshops, The Devil is in the Details: How to Effectively Research and Interpret Data. March 19 – March 20 at University of Maryland.

International Non-Conventional Threat CBRNe USA conference. April 29 – May 1 at University of Maryland.


OPPORTUNITIES

Postdoctoral Research Associates in Computational Social Science and/or Computational Linguistics. Deadline February 26.


STUDENT BLOG

Risk Communication Intern Hones Research, Design Skills by Josh Nesselrodt

START Intern Jumps at Opportunity to Develop New Skills in Data Analysis by Alexa Wesley


START IN THE NEWS

CNN: Five lessons of the Paris attacks
The Global Terrorism Database is cited in this article about the Charlie Hebdo attack. Read more.
 
BBC News: Global school terror attacks rising

BBC reporter Sean Coughlan writes about START’s background report on educational institutions. Read more.
 
Washington Post: The Internet isn’t to blame for radicalization
David Ignatius writes an opinion piece that mentions both the Global Terrorism Database and START’s CVE work. Read more.
 
CNN: Anti-Islam Protests in Germany
START researcher Dr. Arie Kruglanski sits down with Rosemary Church to discuss anti-Islam protests in Germany. Watch here.

 

This is a selection of news clips from the past month.
A complete list of START’s media coverage can be found
here.


SUPPORTING START

Help Support START Research and Education
The START Consortium is dedicated to generating knowledge of the human causes and consequences of terrorism. Applying rigorous standards to both research and education, START seeks to illuminate one of the most highly politicized and understudied phenomena in the social sciences for students, practitioners and policy-makers. Funded primarily through research grants to date, START is seeking to generate an endowment that will provide the flexibility and autonomy to ensure that it can continue to serve as an objective source of data and empirically based analysis into the future.  To donate, or for more information, please click here.