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Why ITERP ?

The great challenge of our century is to succeed in combating the phenomenon of radicalization, which affects religious extremists as much as it affects far-right and far-left groups.

These groups represent the main threat to both our security and our democratic values.

The risk of these violent movements is that public opinion will become tense, gradually leading to a questioning of our fundamental rights and freedoms. Security policies must be accompanied by in-depth reflections about the causes of radicalisation, the profiles of the persons concerned and the means of preventing the transition to violent acts. The best way to combat these phenomena is through effective preventive action to avoid violent escalations.

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What is ITERP ?

The International Team for Evaluation of Radicalisation Prevention (ITERP) is an international consortium comprised of several international research teams working on radicalisation prevention measures. Its special objective is to foster cross-sectorial collaboration by including teams with expertise in the health sector, social and humanitarian sciences, political science, and criminology. It also includes organisations working on research-action measures aimed at radicalised individuals, as these organisations are committed to the self-evaluation of their practices.

“The main goal of the ITERP is to make available scientific qualitative and quantitative tools for organisations, cities, associations and other bodies working on the prevention of radicalisation leading to violence.”

The envisioned approach is the development of evaluation tools in collaboration with the evaluated structure or body. The individuals in charge of the evaluated programmes or measures will be directly involved in the process of evaluating their structures.

Those who have already developed self-evaluating procedures of the measures in their organisation (department or programme), can contact the international team in order to help them formalise the evaluations, develop new tools, make their approach more comprehensive, or simply promote their tools and the results of their evaluation at an international scale.

The partnership between ITERP and the respective teams shall be one based on transparency and complementarity. Hence, ITERP shall intervene to provide support only for organisations where internal evaluation is already being performed. ITERP can also intervene on a mandate to evaluate measures for prevention, provided by institutions, municipalities or governments. Its guiding principles shall be the same in every case. The approval of the entities in charge of programmes would be a prerequisite, as well as their involvement in the collaborative development of evaluation tools. 

Nowadays, all organisations are expected to include an evaluation element in their procedures. However, some of them to not always have the scientific and financial means for an expert team capable of delivering the necessary tools. It is within this context that the international team has a mission to help provide logistical support and address scientific challenges in the process of self-evaluation performed by institutions. The objective is that the evaluation of the respective organisations could benefit from more efficient tools, as well as other prevention measures similar to those implemented in other countries. The evaluated organisations have the right to withdraw from the evaluation process at any given stage of the procedure.