Project

Radicalization, extremism and terrorism are phenomena that repeatedly pose major challenges to societies around the world to a greater or lesser extent. An increasing politically and, in some cases, religiously (Islamist) motivated radicalization is currently being observed in Germany. This development is reflected, among other things, in politically motivated crime and violence as well as in forms of expressive hate crime. Radicalized violence has the potential to endanger a society that is based on freedom and democracy and relies on tolerance. Accordingly, MOTRA sees the prevention and combating of radicalized violence as a task for society as a whole - MOTRA wants to make a contribution to this.

In view of the multidimensional processes taking place in mutually influencing phenomenal areas and groups, MOTRA wants to contribute to a comprehensive, evidence-based policy-making and practice. To this end, the areas of action of prevention and combating violent radicalization will be looked at above all, with particular attention to the holistic and systematic monitoring of heterogeneous radicalization events in Germany, including terrorist acts. MOTRA pursues two central goals for implementation:

Empirical-analytical objective: Monitoring Islamist-influenced radicalization events in Germany
Holistic and systematic monitoring is implemented using multi-method, longitudinal phenomenon/trend analyzes or in-depth case analyses. Systematic phenomenon monitoring enables faster identification and classification of new phenomena as well as an information basis for prognostic statements on phenomenon developments with significant quality. This is the basic requirement for an evidence-based, repressive and preventative security policy, which should be supported with the help of MOTRA monitoring. Through its approach combining various methods, MOTRA will in future be able to provide a broadly based knowledge and orientation base for Security policy-making that goes beyond the existing breadth of data and can specifically transfer it into practice.

Structural objective: Transfer platform science – practice – politics
The transfer platform serves as an exchange forum for scientists, which also includes a continuous inventory of current research findings. With the help of this central platform, not only the knowledge gained through monitoring is intended to be conveyed, but also the research initiatives that already exist in the field of phenomena in the Federal Republic are networked with one another in order to promote synergy effects. Research results must be communicated more quickly to those who need them so that they have a chance of being quickly incorporated into the users' everyday work .  

The transfer platform is intended to significantly shorten the time gap between the generation of research findings and their application context. The typically interdisciplinary character of this research plays a key role for MOTRA and is also reflected in the numerous partners from science, politics and practice who belong to the transfer network and are crucial for the successful transfer of knowledge between these three areas.