Expert Review

There has been a lot of creativity among first-line practitioners throughout Europe in the field of P/CVE. They have introduced many inspiring ways of working to prevent radicalisation. Beginning in 2020, practice owners whose practices are part of the RAN Collection have the opportunity to receive an expert review. The review is conducted by a member of the RAN expert pool. Practices that receive an expert review with a positive outcome will be labelled ‘best practice’.

The aim of the expert review is threefold: to introduce more quality standards for inclusion in the RAN Collection, to raise awareness about the increasing necessity of evaluating P/CVE interventions, tools and methods, and to further support practitioners with the professionalisation of their projects.

This review will be based on a set of questions, taking into account the success factors of the practice and the methodology and approach taken. The reviews are on a voluntary basis and will not be published.

Best practices and lessons learned from 2020

In 2020, the RAN Collection started to differentiate between ‘inspiring’ and ‘best’ practices to raise awareness about the increasing necessity of evaluating P/CVE interventions. To date, 14 practices have taken part in the review with a positive outcome and are now labelled as best practice in the RAN Collection:

1. Jamal al Khatib, Austria
2. Athena Sintax: where art and education meet, Belgium
3. CSHR: intercultural education, Croatia
4. R2PRIS, Belgium, Portugal, Norway, the Netherlands, Romania and Turkey
5. Managing Controversy: Developing a Strategy for Handling Controversy and Teaching Controversial Issues in Schools, United Kingdom
6. JUMP, Exit work located in the social space, Germany
7. Open Youth Work as a methodology preventing and countering extremism, Austria
8. Aggredi programme, Finland
9. Advice Centre Hesse, Germany
10. Radicalisation Prevention and Deradicalisation in Prison and Probation (formerly known as ‘Taking Responsibility — Breaking away from Hate and Violence, Germany
11. Swedish method of working with formers in Exit work, Sweden
12. The Framework of Radicalisation Risk Indicators, Bulgaria
13. Social Net Conferencing, Austria
14. Extremism Information Centre, Austria

Below, the first round of expert reviews is reflected in the RAN Collection in numbers:

For the overarching lessons that can be drawn for the 2020 Expert Review, please consult this infographic.

Taking part in the Expert Review in 2021

In 2021, between 15 and 20 new RAN Collection practices will be invited for an expert review on a voluntary basis. They will be selected based on quality, taking into consideration a balanced geographical spread of practices throughout the EU and an equal distribution of practices focusing on primary, secondary and tertiary prevention.

• Primary prevention is targeted at whole population groups or everyone within a broad category of P/CVE.

• Secondary prevention is targeted at defined groups at risk of radicalisation/violent extremism and/or prone to committing criminal/terrorist acts.

• Tertiary prevention is directed toward radicalised individuals or problem groups and individuals who demonstrate problematic behaviour for a violent extremism cause.

This year’s expert review will focus on key themes (see below) in P/CVE in alignment with the 2021 strategic orientations of the coordinated EU approach on preventing radicalisation. The selected practice should show a clear link with the following key themes in P/CVE:

• prison and exit continuum
• probation
• returning Foreign Terrorist Fighters and their families
• training for first-line practitioners
• local interventions
• communication

Additional criteria:

• The practice is still running*;
• The practice was last updated in the RAN Collection in 2019, 2020 or 2021 to ensure a list with the most recent best practices;
• It has been monitored and evaluated to some degree already.

*Some practices in the RAN Collection were ‘short-term interventions’ and are no longer running. Since some of these practices are excellent examples of P/CVE interventions, exceptions may be made regarding this criterion.