VORTEX (Coping with the Varieties of Radicalization into Terrorism and Extremism) is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Doctoral Network funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme. We bring 8 universities and research institutes together and employ 10 doctoral candidates. Our overarching aim is to develop new evidence-based innovative strategies to counter and prevent ideological and behavioral radicalization.
The understanding of radicalization is currently trapped between securitizational approaches and socio-cultural contextual explanations, influencing political agencies, practitioners, and scholars alike. One approach focuses on the immediate and short-term security needs of European societies. Another approach stresses long-term structural factors, such as socio-economic marginalization, as a breeding ground for extremism, radicalization, and extremist world views and cognitive mindsets.
VORTEX provides an integrated and meaningful research programme not only but primarily for doctoral candidates to pursue their research in a fruitful and meaningful dialogue among relevant disciplines and in a dense web of supervision, training, and interaction to jump-start both successful and relevant careers.
VORTEX explores and compares different varieties of radicalization in several empirical settings. Practice-based research with our 12 associated partners, connecting doctoral candidates to future job markets and audiences, will offer the opportunity to investigate radicalizations on several levels, ranging from local to global and from cognitive to behavioral.
VORTEX is coordinated by Prof. Kristian Steiner, Malmö University.