On April 20, 2022, the CounteR project conducted its first public webinar. More than 55 participants attended the online event in Zoom, representing industry and commercial actors, end-users, suppliers, service-providers, CSOs, sister projects, academia, and institutions. Members of CounteR’s consortium that includes 19 organizations from 11 Member States were also in attendance as guests or as panellists. This webinar sought to share project updates, and also experiences, and get to know the insights and perspectives of industry colleagues.
CounteR’s project manager, Cătălin TRUFIN from ASSIST Software SRL, provided opening remarks and a presentation of the project goals, objectives, milestones, and work packages. He explained that CounteR is a three-year project for supporting the fight against radicalisation that will produce an early-warning for the detection of potential radical content to prevent the spread of radicalisation online.
The webinar continued with Maria Mirada from INSIKT Intelligence, the leader of WP1, who shared most recent updates about the completion of one of CounteR’s milestones: the user requirements for the creation of CounteR’s Platform. Maria, whose presentation can be found here, walked the audience through the process of translating the project’s initial on-paper guidelines into explicit action items that respond to the specific needs of the partner LEAs and ISPs.
Next, senior researchers from the Catholic University of Sacred Heart (UCSC), Prof. Barbara Vettori and Dr. Barbara Lucini, presented insights about the social factors of the radicalisation process. Their presentation can be found here.
The event continued with two other researchers from UCSC, Prof. Carlo Galimberti and Dr. Ilaria Vergine, who further expanded the topic by presenting the psychological factor for radicalisation. Their presentation can be found here.
The webinar’s second part included presentations by two of CounteR’s sister projects, also funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and innovation programme: CREST and PROPHETS.
George Kalpakis, Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, made an overview about the CREST project, focusing on its platform for prediction, prevention, operation, and investigation. George’s presentation can be found here.
Sven-Eric Fikenscher from the Hochschule für den öffentlichen Dienst in Bayern presented the PROPHETS project and talked about conceptualising and measuring behavioural radicalisation in an online context. Sven-Eric’s presentation can be found here.
Following an insightful Q&A session, Borislav Mavrov from the European Institute Foundation, leader of WP9, closed the webinar and invited the participants to subscribe to CounteR’s newsletter and follow the project on Twitter and LinkedIn, so that the discussion on the topics raised can continue. The webinar came as a follow-up to CounteR’s LinkedIn Cluster Group, launched in 2021 for interaction with industry actors.
Presentation Barbara Vettori and Barbara Lucini,
Carlo Galimberti and Ilaria Vergine,
