Investigating Radicalization Trends

Babak Akhgar is Professor of Informatics and Director of CENTRIC (Centre of excellence in terrorism, resilience, intelligence and organised crime research). Babak has more than 100 referred publications on security, OSINT, counter terrorism and cybercrime. He is principal investigator and technical lead in several multimillion Euros international security initiatives.  He has co-edited two books on intelligence management - Intelligence Management: Knowledge Driven Frameworks for Combating Terrorism and Organised Crime, and Strategic Intelligence Management: National Security Imperatives and Information and Communications Technologies. Prof Akhgar latest books are titled Cyber Crime and Cyber Terrorism, An investigators handbook and Application of Big Data for National Security are published by Elsevier. In addition to his scholarly activities; Prof Akhgar was trustee of Police National Legal Database (PNLD), board member of European Organisation for Security and member of SAS UK academic board. Douglas Wells is a leading researcher of CENTRIC, specialising in subjects of domestic extremism, international terrorism and IR critical theory. Douglas graduated from Lancaster University with an MA in Conflict, Development and Security Studies, he is currently researching a PhD into UK police use of OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) towards domestic extremism. Despite his relatively young age, Douglas has taken on significant roles in multiple EU-funded projects for the DG-home and Horizon 2020 FP7 initiatives. Much of his work includes practical, primary research, such as involvement with extremist marches, interviews and recreating crime-scenes and other physical examples of radicalised behaviour. Jose Maria Blanco is a security expert working for Guardia Civil, Jose manages and oversees several critical areas such as; knowledge management, foresight and horizon scanning of international, national and homeland security, and, intelligence analysis. Jose holds two masters, one in Intelligence Analysis from Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, and another in Risk Prevention from INSHT, Madrid. In particular, his education has focused around Intelligence Cycles, Analysis Techniques, Foresight, Dissemination and Competitive Intelligence.