Amber Seaward

Adverse Childhood Experiences and Susceptibility to Violent Extremism Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are harms that affect children directly (e.g. physical abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect) and indirectly through their living environment (e.g. conflict betwe...

💡New publication 💡

Out now and open access in Terrorism and Political Violence, @zoemarchment.bsky.social leads our latest paper on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and susceptibility to violent extremism, with @caitlinclemmow.bsky.social and @paulgillucl.bsky.social:

doi.org/10.1080/0954...

🔹 Aarhus 🇩🇰
CTRG presented at NCVE25.

@amberseaward.bsky.social shared her work on unmet mental health needs in safeguarding.

A CTRG panel explored how grievances mobilise some toward violent extremism, with @caitlinclemmow.bsky.social Ance Martinsone, Mary-Ann Cherry

It’s been a busy week for CTRG:

🔹 Prague 🇨🇿:
Lujia Pei presented her PhD research at the VOX-Pol Next Generation Network Conference, sharing insights from a systematic review on how young people become involved in violent extremism, with a special focus on the role of the internet.

Also happening this week, CTRG member Lujia Pei will be presenting at the @vox-pol.bsky.social Next Generation Network Conference, on 25th September, held at Charles University in Prague.

Looking forward to presenting my research on unmet needs at NCVE in Aarhus next week, along with my CTRG colleagues👇

🚨 CTRG at the Nordic Conference on Violent Extremism 2025 🚨

Several CTRG members are presenting their research next week in Aarhus 🇩🇰, see details below👇

Please see below for information on a new IAPPS Communities of Interest (CoI) on Risk Assessment & Risk Management of terrorism and targeted violence, led by Caitlin Clemmow and I!

lnkd.in/dmTATKRG

Communities of Interest This initiative brings researchers and practitioners together around shared topics in targeted violence and terrorism prevention.

📢 Introducing our THREE new Communities of Interest (CoIs) - bringing together researchers, practitioners, and policymakers around shared themes in targeted violence and terrorism prevention. Explore them here 👉 crestresearch.ac.uk/iapss/coi/

🚨 CTRG at the European Society of Criminology Conference 2025 🚨

CTRG are represented at this year’s ESC Conference in Athens, where some of our team will present their research. Details below 👇

We are pleased to share some of CTRG’s recent citation milestones, as reflected by the latest Google Scholar metrics. These milestones highlight the continued reach and impact of our collective work, along with our valued collaborators.

Congrats to CTRG member @sandyschumann.bsky.social for winning the inaugural Open Criminology Award! 👇

Thank you to @socterres.bsky.social for the opportunity to present my work on safeguarding and unmet mental health needs in countering violent extremism.

This can be found in Ch 7 of my thesis (link below) and will hopefully be published soon.

discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10...

#STR2025

Our research group has launched a Bluesky account @ctrg.bsky.social to keep you up-to-date on our work on radicalisation, terrorism, and extremism. Members include @paulgillucl.bsky.social @noemiebouhana.bsky.social @zoemarchment.bsky.social @amberseaward.bsky.social @sandyschumann.bsky.social

CTRG members @amberseaward.bsky.social, Sara Rubini, and Ance Martinsone will be presenting at @socterres.bsky.social's annual conference next week - check out their presentations for updates on our research!

New Bluesky profile for our Counter Terrorism Research Group at UCL: @ctrg.bsky.social

Follow to keep up to date with our research, and stay tuned for our website launch!

Commissioning Thank you for your interest in applying to the NABS+ commissioning call. To ensure your application meets all necessary criteria, please read the guidance documents below carefully before submitting.…

🔍 The NABS+ commissioning call is now open!

We’re funding small, focused research projects that tackle key security and defence challenges using behavioural science. Topics include AI, online harms, and information manipulation. APPLY NOW crestresearch.ac.uk/nabs/commiss...

Discussed during the research group meeting yesterday: we may be reaching a point where it is impossible for academics AND professionals to analyse and counter certain forms of harm. The material involved is so unbearable to watch, trauma is unpreventable.

Been pondering this wicked problem since.

The public health approach to threat assessment, through analysing safeguarding & unmet mental health needs regarding fixated threats and terrorism.

Risk factors for different extremist/terrorist, firstly with closed source data from a Prevent mental health hub, and then with a general population survey of intentions.

The structure and implementation of different targeted violence threat assessment teams in various regions and settings.

My PhD thesis is now available on UCL’s repository! For the TLDR version, the abstract/introduction/discussion are good summaries…

discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1020…

In it, I explore:

In the past 72 hours, our work on reporting suspicious behavior, online radicalization, school shooters, helping parents intervene with kids at risk of online harms, has all been terminated.

We will rise again. But for now, we are upset, and we are angry. And you should be too.

Killing Grants That Have Saved Lives: Trump’s Cuts Signal End to Government Work on Terrorism Prevention Tens of millions of dollars slated for violence prevention have been cut or are frozen as DOGE steamrolls the national security sector. “This is the government getting out of the terrorism business,” ...

Killing Grants That Have Saved Lives: Trump’s Cuts Signal End to Government Work on Terrorism Prevention

www.propublica.org/article/trum...

Extremely pleased to announce that today I passed my PhD viva with no corrections! Hugely grateful to my fantastic supervisors Dr. Paul Gill and Dr. Zoe Marchment , and examiners Dr. Sarah Marsden and Dr. Aiden Sidebottom. Looking forward to getting all my thesis chapters published very soon!

📣 Call for applications for a PhD Summer School on the study of online right-wing extremism 📣 Confirmed lecturers include @galwaygrrl.bsky.social @ashkingdon.bsky.social and Cathrine Thorleifsson! 🤩

See below our recent article on disaggregating terrorist behaviours featured as the Journal of Forensic Sciences open access article of the week 👇

Beyond binary: Analyzing closed‐source data to compare specific roles and behaviors within violent and nonviolent terrorist involvement Increasingly, studies compare risk and protective factors for involvement in violent and nonviolent terrorist behaviors. This exploratory study investigates whether this distinction is sufficient, or...

ICYMI: two new studies from our team looking at disaggregating extremist behaviours: among referrals to a Prevent mental health hub (doi.org/10.1111/1556...) and to Channel (doi.org/10.1002/bsl....)