Background
Between 2014 and 2018, 171 terrorist attacks took place in Germany, causing 26 deaths and 190 wounded people. Due to these figures, it is understandable that the topic of radicalization has experienced a considerable boom in social science research in the last years. In recent times, scientific interest has especially focused on the significance of extremist propaganda on the Internet and the importance of social media.
Between 2017 and 2020, the European Commission funded the research network Policy Recommendations and Improved Communication Tools for Law Enforcement and Security Agencies Preventing Violent Radicalisation (PERICLES). The network with 16 full partners from eight countries investigated current practice in the prevention of violent radicalization in an European comparison and developed measures and recommendations to optimize prevention work. The network was initially coordinated by the Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony and later by the Chair of Security Management at Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences.