A webinar from the Addressing Violent Extremism and Radicalisation to Terrorism (AVERT) Research Network.

In 2014, Marc Sageman proposed that terrorism research had stagnated. The claim of stagnation has resulted in a period of collective review within terrorism studies. To date, the fruits of this review have revealed a more cautiously optimistic view of the field than that proposed by Sageman. This talk will reflect on this review by analyzing the interviews of forty-three guests from the first season of the Talking Terror podcast. Presented will be a thematic analysis of their views on the overall health of terrorism research. The interviewees include both pre-and post-9/11 researchers. Through this analysis four themes are identified: Interdisciplinary Research and Researchers, Data, Applied Research, and Area/Field. For the purposes of this talk the themes of Interdisciplinary Research and Applied Research will be particularly focused on. The majority of interviewees were more optimistic than Sageman in relation to the overall health of the area. Analysis of their responses will be presented alongside some recommendations for the future direction of the area.

Dr. John F. Morrison is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology, at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is the co-programme director of the MSc in Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism Studies, which launched in the academic year 2019/20. John holds a BA in Psychology from University College Dublin, an MA in Forensic Psychology from University College Cork and a PhD in International Relations from the University of St. Andrews. Prior to joining Royal Holloway in September 2018 John was a Reader in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of East London (UEL). In 2016 John became the founding director of the Terrorism and Extremism Research Centre (TERC) at UEL. John was also a a posttdoctoral researcher at The International Center for the Study of Terrorism, at The Pennsylvania State University between 2010 and 2011. In that year he managed the Violent Dissident Irish Republican research