VOX-Pol’s inaugural week-long Training Academy took place in Valencia, Spain from Monday, 21 September, 2015 to Friday, 25 September, 2015.
The event was designed to provide policymakers, law enforcement, social media companies, and others professionally tasked with responding to violent online extremism and terrorism with an introduction to the role of the Internet in contemporary violent political extremism(s).
Topics addressed included the online strategies of violent jihadis and the extreme right; the role of the Internet in lone actor terrorism; the online behaviours of convicted terrorists; the gender dimensions of violent online extremism; and online CVE (Countering Violent Extremism); amongst other topics.
The Academy, which attracted 24 participants from 8 countries, was composed of a mix of formal lectures, breakout/discussion sessions, and hands-on labs. The latter were dedicated to providing participants with an overview of tools and methods for research and analysis in this domain.
Feedback from participants on the Training Academy was uniformly positive, being variously described as “a fantastic week” and “the content, audience, speakers” as “spot on,” and providing “some really useful information for me to take back to [my country].”
More information about the Training Academy is available on the dedicated Events page.