ExpectedOutcome:
Projects’ results are expected to contribute to some or all of the following outcomes:

Improved understanding of motivation of women and girls for supporting extremist ideologies, such as grievance and stigmatisation;
Improved understanding of the role of masculinity in men and boys’ motivation for the support of extreme ideologies;
Better understanding of the group dynamics at play during processes of radicalisation, including factors for factionalism and potential splinters in terrorist organisations;
Development of strategies aimed at enhancing the use of motivation factor in detection, prevention and de-radicalisation efforts;
European Police Authorities, Prison Authorities, social care workers, teachers and other P/CVE practitioners benefit from modern and validated tools, skills and training curricula to identify early symptoms of radicalisation;
Identification and assessment of best practices that are transferable across Member States improving and developing modules and trainings, strengthening adaption of local community policing in diverse communities; and
Design girls and women's empowerment approaches through legal, financial and/or cultural means aimed at tackling the root causes of radicalisation and extremism.


Scope:
Terrorism resulting from radicalisation and violent extremism is a serious threat to European security. Part of the complexity of these phenomena lies in the fact that there is neither a single pathway to radicalisation nor a single terrorist profile. Support of extremists is an effect of individual clusters of psychological, personal, social, economic and political reasons. From a gender perspective, women's radicalisation and involvement in violent extremist groups remain relatively under-researched, poorly understood and possibly characterized by misconceptions about women’s exclusion from decision-making processes, as well as their significant underrepresentation in bodies countering the phenomena. In situations of conflict and violence, women are often seen as passive, victims, subordinate and maternal, while these could be assumptions reinforcing gender stereotypes. In order to improve understandings of radicalization and gender we need to study how and why gender norms appear as an increasingly contested area of politics with strong mobilizing power. What role gender norms and equality policies play in stabilizing and destabilizing social and political order, and how ideas and norms about gender equality make people react, mobilize and engage politically, at present, in the past and in the future. The entry point for prevention and de-radicalisation efforts are local communities, which are both stakeholders and partners of the law enforcement in this process. Activities aimed at youngsters and adults have to be gender sensitive, and research has to deliver tailored advice and solutions adequately, and proportionately addressing all critical issues.

Community policing with its multidisciplinary approach seeks the cooperation of local communities and the broad range of public authorities in its efforts of building safe environments. However, those efforts should recognise not only cultural, social and economic diversity of the milieus, but as mentioned above also be gender sensitive. The successful proposal should build on the publicly available achievements and findings of related previous national or EU-funded projects as well as seek to exploit potential synergies with the successful proposal(s) funded under HORIZON-CL3-2023-FCT-01-03: New methods and technologies in service of community policing and transferable best practices, and HORIZON-CL2-2024-DEMOCRACY-01-05: Gender-roles in extremist movements and their impact on democracy.

Moreover, the EU Counter-Terrorism Agenda adopted in 2020 outlines that Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) will identify best practices and approaches of community policing and engagement to build trust with and among communities, thus research under this topic should also build upon the work done by RAN. This topic requires the effective contribution of SSH disciplines and the involvement of SSH experts, institutions as well as the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related innovation activities.


Specific Topic Conditions:
Activities are expected to achieve TRL 5-6 by the end of the project – see General Annex B.