In this section we will give information on the abstract of the research focus, the projected outcome and the timeframe in which the research is to be conducted. A more detailed description of the research project as well as unforeseen milestones can be found under "proposal".

First, however, we will take this opportunity to introduce to you most of the researchers contributing to this project. They are listed below, grouped according to the institution they work for. For more information on the institutes, please turn to the page on our consortium

• ISSCM - COT Institute for Safety, Security, and Conflict Management (The Netherlands)


• Clingendael - Netherlands Institute of International Relations (The Netherlands


• DCISM - Danish Centre for International Studies and Human Rights (Denmark)


• FRIDE - La Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior (Spain)


• IIR - Institute for International Relations (Czech Republic)


• TNO - Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (The Netherlands)

Roland Bron (Senior Research-Consultant) studied Law and Communication Science at the Universities of Leiden and Amsterdam (UvA). At the COT he has participated in research in the fields of security and crisismanagement, as well as the training of crisisteams. He has been working with police, public prosecution service, intelligence agencies and various private organizations. Throughout his work, he has focused on the implications of the terrorist threat for these organizations. For TTSRL, his main focus is the overall project coordination.

Dennis de Hoog (Senior Research-Consultant) holds a Masters of Arts degree in history and a Masters of Science degree in Political Science (cum laude). In his Political Science masters thesis Democracy & Terrorism: A new quantitative inquiry into the relationship between terrorism and regime types he provided the �democracy-terrorism� debate with a new impetus by using a more sound statistical tool and by broadening the empirical scope of the debate from only transnational terrorism to incidents of domestic terrorism as well. For the COT he has been conducting policy-oriented research in the fields of safety and crisis management in general and the policing and counter-terrorism field in particular. With respect to counter-terrorism his main foci are preparation, consequence management & radicalization.

Fréderique Petit (Project Coordinator and Junior Researcher) started reading International Relations and Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, a few weeks before 9/11, 2001 and graduated with an upper 2:1 in May 2005. During her studies there she researched the efficacy of international criminal tribunals and was committed to the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV) in St. Andrews in the form of a country analist. She set off analyzing the developments within western and central African states such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast and Nigeria, but was later placed to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) group to cover the developments within Tunisia and Algeria. Before, during and after her studies she developed her personal and academic skills further through participation in training-courses, international conferences and several simulation projects and games on many different issues.

Polyna Berlin (Junior Researcher) holds a Masters of Arts degree in international relations and diplomacy from Leiden University/Clingendael Institute. She has studied terrorism and counter-terrorism for the past two years. She joined COT Instituut voor Veiligheid en Crisismanagement as a junior researcher to finalize the TTSRL project. While pursuing her master�s degree, Polyna worked at the Clingendael Security and Conflict Programme as a project coordinator and contributed to research and drafting of five TTSRL reports. Prior to re-locating to Europe, she was an account executive at a public relations agency in Los Angeles. Developing and implementing successful branding campaigns for a portfolio of clients were among her primary responsibilities. Born in Ukraine and raised in California, Polyna speaks both English and Russian fluently.

Jan Dobbelaar (Junior Researcher) studied Criminology at Leiden University. He wrote his Master thesis on war crimes prosecution and the construction of liability in trials. At the COT he focuses on several research areas and, next to TTSRL, participated in many different research and advisory projects. Within TTSRL he focuses on the conceptual grounding of terrorism, like in the studies on the nexus between terrorism and organized crime and the terrorism typology construction. Next to this he is charged with the overall coordination of the Workpackage focusing on the negative economic impact of terrorism.

Quintin van Mildert (Student Assistant) is currently finishing his Masters program International Relations at the University of Groningen. During his studies he concentrated on ethics and security. Quintin joined the COT-TTSRL team as a research intern in July 2008. He will be working on the project till its deadline.

Dirk Bijl de Vroe (Intern) studied History at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and is currently finishing his Masters program International Relations in an Historical Perspective. During his studies he concentrated on security-studies, particularly Terrorism, and participated in organizing peace-and-security-related seminars. Dirk joined the COT-TTSRL team as a research intern in April 2008. He will be working on the project till its deadline in December.

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Dr. Edwin Bakker (Head of CSCP, Senior Research Fellow) has been a senior research fellow at the Clingendael Institute since 2003. His research focuses on (counter)terrorism and new and unconventional threats to security. For his PhD research in political geography, Dr. Bakker studied ethnic minority conflicts in Central Europe. Other areas of interest include (international policies aimed at preventing or managing) separatism and intra state war on the Balkans, on which topics he lectured at the Center for International Conflict Analysis of the University of Nijmegen. Dr. Bakker manages and oversees the entire TTSRL project at Clingendael, and has been actively involved in all aspects of planning and researching workpackages and deliverables attributed to Clingendael Institute. Since 2007, Dr. Bakker is head of the Clingendael Security and Conflict Programme. In addition, he is editor of the journals Human Rights and Security, Internationale Spectator, and Vrede & Veiligheid, and board member of the Netherlands Helsinki Committee and Spolu International.

Bibi van Ginkel (Senior Research Fellow). Bibi's research concentrates on (international) legal aspects of security issues. She focuses especially on legal aspects of combating terrorism in both a national and an international context. With an active role in TTSRL, Bibi has been instrumental in advising and researching Workpackage 3 Analysis of Definitions of EU Institutions. She moreover coordinated the research into the ethical justness of European counter-terrorism measures (Workpackage 6). She has also contributed to three other workpackages, including Root and Trigger Causes of Terrorism and the Theoretical Treatise on Counterterrorism Approaches. Prior to joining Clingendael she lectured international law at Utrecht University. She is also a member of the Peace and Security Committee of the Advisory Council of International Affairs.

Floor Janssen (Research Intern) is a graduate student of the Department of the Middle East at the Radboud University Nijmegen. She has studied the Arabic language and the Egyptian dialect extensively, as well as the Middle Eastern region through various disciplines. The main focus of her research background are (violent) Islamist groups and social movements in the central Middle East. Her current research focuses on the Hamas movement in the Palestinian Territories. More specific, it aims to identify Hamas� stand towards Israel through its official Arabic documents. As an intern at the Clingendael Institute, Floor was involved in three workpackages of the TTSRL project. First, she has contributed to the Hizb ut Tahrir case study included in Exploring Root and Trigger Causes of Terrorism. Further, she has contributed to the research and drafting of three reports; Theoretical Treatise on Counterterrorism Approaches, Causal factors of Radicalization and The EU Counterradicalization Strategy.

Claudia Schorr (Research Intern). Claudia is a student at Leiden University where she is following courses for an MA in Public Administration with a focus on crisis management. Her main research interests are European security issues and crisis management. She has contributed to the research for Workpackage 6, deliverables 12A and 12B. She has previously interned in Japan. Claudia received her BA in European Studies from Twente University in Enschede, The Netherlands.

Tinka Veldhuis (Research Intern) is a research assistant at Clingendael Institute, where she has been part of the research team for TTSRL. Prominently, she has been working on Workpackage 4: Terrorism�s consequences for the civil peace in European societies: Media effects, vulnerable groups & civil polarization, for which she has been actively involved in researching and writing Causal Factors of Radicalization, a report that investigates the underlying mechanisms that lead to radicalization. In addition, Tinka is currently enrolled in the multidisciplinary (sociology and social-psychology) Top-Research Master Human Behavior in Social Contexts at the University of Groningen, after which she will advance on into a PhD on the causes of radicalization. More specifically, her research focuses on sociological and psychological characteristics of religious fundamentalism, like network dynamics within extremist networks, social identification mechanisms, and the role of collective emotions in the rise and spread of radicalism.

Steven Westervelt (Research Intern). Steven is a student at Leiden University/Clingendael where he is enrolled in the joint International Relations and Diplomacy MA program. His primary research interests are terrorism & counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and military innovation. He contributed to the research for Workpackage 6, deliverables 12A and 12B. He has previously interned in Washington DC where he worked for a political development NGO. Steven received his BA in International Studies from California Lutheran University in the United States.

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Kasper Ege (Student Assistant) has a BA in EU-Studies from the University of Roskilde, 2005, and an MA in Intelligence and International Security from King�s College London, 2006/2007. He is in the process of finishing a Danish MA degree from Department of Society and Globalisation at the University of Roskilde. He has completed internships at the Embassy of Denmark in Riga, Latvia, August-February 2005/2006, and at NATO Headquarters, Operations Division, Brussels Belgium, February-July 2006. He is currently employed at DIIS as a Student Assistant since October 2007. Within TTSRL he is primarily engaged in WP2 and WP4. In WP2 he is doing work on Denmark and Sweden. In WP4 he is primarily preparing work on the country-studies of Sweden and Denmark and is conducting interviews with media-representatives and government officials.

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Paulo Botta (Project Coordinator and Researcher) studied International Relations at Universidad Cat�lica de C�rdoba (C�rdoba, Argentina). He was awarded a grant by the Ministry of Higher Education of the Arab Republic of Egypt to study at the Arabic Language Center in Cairo (Egypt). Now, he coordinates the FRIDE-part of the TTSRL project. He is a Ph.D. candidate at Instituto Ortega y Gasset - Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Carolina Foundation, Doctorate Fellowships Programme). Before joining FRIDE, he taught at Universidad Empresarial Siglo 21(C�rdoba, Argentina) and he worked at Center for Contemporary Middle Eastern Studies - CEMOC.

Vidal Mart�n (Researcher Peace, Security & Human Rights) has a Law Degree of the University of Valladolid and Universit� degli Studi di Padova (Italy). He was part of the Refugee and Asylum Legal Support Unit at the Irish Centre for Human Rights (ICHR), National University of Ireland, Galway. His research mainly focuses on Human Rights and International Criminal Justice in post-conflict situations. Previously, Researcher and Collaborator in the �Model Codes for Post-Conflict Criminal Justice Project� run jointly by the ICHR, the US Institute for Peace (USIP) and the UN High Commissioner. He took part at EU Youth Programmes (Action 5) as a ICHR Representative, on Conflict Resolution and Transforming conflict in the Euro-Mediterranean Region (Euromed).

Jessica Almquist (Researcher) has a PhD in Law from the European University Institute, Florence, Italy (2002) and LL.M. in International Law and Cand. Jur. from the University of Lund, Sweden (1993). She has also studied Law and Political Science at UC Berkeley Department of Political Science (Graduate Exchange Student, 1994-95) and Columbia University School of Law (Visiting Fellow, 1998-99). From 2002 to 2004, Jessica Almqvist was Research Associate at the Project on International Courts and Tribunals, Centre on International Cooperation, New York University. She was also Adjunct Professor at the Department of Social Sciences, New School University, New York. Prior to her PhD studies, Jessica Almqvist worked at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Lund, Sweden, as Publications Officer and Research Assistant (1992-1996). During this period, she was also Editorial Assistant for the Nordic Journal of International Law. Dr. Almqvist is the author of the book Human Rights, Culture and the Rule of Law (Hart Publishers, Oxford, 2005) and co-editor of The Human Rights Council: Challenges and Opportunities (FRIDE 2006)

Philippe Benassi (Assistant Researcher) holds a Degree in Political Sciences by the Institute of Political Sciences of Toulouse, Law Degree by the Universit� della Sapienza di Roma (Italy) and Master Degree in International Administration by the University of Paris 2 Assas. Previously, Philippe has been consultant at the ILO in Geneva and Madrid, and hired by the Club de Madrid in preparation for the International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security. From 2005 to 2007, he worked as well for the agency of cooperation of the Embassy of France in Indonesia as a project coordinator in the fields of higher education, good governance and Human Rights. He is assistant researcher in the TTSRL project and works on the WP2, 4 and 6.

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Veronika B�lkov� (Project Coordinator and Senior Researcher). PhDr., JUDr., PhD., E.MA, graduated from the Law Faculty of Charles University (Mgr. 2001, PhD. 2006, JUDr. 2007, specialization: international law), the Philosophical Faculty of Charles University (Mgr. 2003, PhDr. 2004, specialization: political science and French philology) and the European Master Program in Human Rights and Democratization (E.MA 2004). Lecturer at the Law Faculty of the Charles University (since 2006). Research fellow at the Institute of International Relations in Prague (since 2001). Internship at the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva (2005). Awarded several prizes (Hl�vka Prize 2001. Gilbert Apollis Prize 2001, Bolzano Prize 2006) and scholarships (Sasakawa 2003, Hus Foundation 2005). Publications in Czech, English and French mainly on terrorism, the use of force, international humanitarian law, international criminal law, human rights and the UN reform. She is the IIR project coordinator and senior researcher in the TTSRL project.

Tom� Weiss (Junior Researcher) graduated in European studies at the Hamburg University of Economics and Politics and at the Institute of International Studies of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University where he continues in PhD studies now. In 2007, he studied at Pazm�ny P�ter Katolikus Egyetem in Budapest. In 2004, he completed an internship at the EU Institute for Security Studies in Paris. Since 2006, he has lectured on EU and security affairs at Charles University and at Metropolitan University Prague. His main field of interest is the EU common foreign and security policy with focus on ESDP and counter-terrorism, and transatlantic relations. He is a junior researcher in the TTSRL project.

V�t Str�teck� (Junior Researcher) is a research fellow at the Institute of International Relations and a PhD candidate in IR at Charles University, Prague. He is also currently doing a postgraduate research degree in international security at the School of IR, University of St. Andrews, Scotland, where he also successfully finished the internship program within the Centre for the Studies of Terrorism and Political Violence. He holds an MA in IR from Charles and studied also at Uppsala University, Sweden and Tbilisi State University, Georgia. His major interests include relation between security, technology and power, and conceptual problems of terrorism research. He is further interested in security studies theories and concepts as well as theories of IR. Geographically, he focuses on the security prospects of the Caucasus region. He is a junior researcher in the TTSRL project.

Erik Frinking (Director National Security and Intelligence at HCSS). Drs. Frinking is a senior policy analyst at TNO Defence, Security, and Safety and programme leader at the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS). His activities focus on identifying and analyzing policy options, evaluating policy outcomes, and developing strategies pertaining to issues of national and international security and intelligence. He joined TNO/HCSS in March 2006 and holds a Masters degree in political science from the University of Leiden.Erik has been actively involved in the TTSRL project for the past two years.

Teun van Dongen (Junior Researcher) Teun van Dongen holds a Master�s degree in history and in international relations, both with a strong interest in ideologically inspired political movements in the 20th and 21st century. Before working at HCSS, he worked for the Dutch Permanent Representation at NATO. His PhD research focuses on terrorism and counterterrorism. He is interested in the effectiveness of counterterrorism policies. Teun worked on the TTSRL project for the past two year with a particular focus on Workpackage 6.

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