Depok, July 10th 2023. Political Psychology Labratory of Universitas Indonesia (UI) collaborated with Universty of Distance Education, also known as Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Spain. This collaboration aims to enhance the impact of research through cross-nation study and collaboration between universities and researchers, especially concerning the topic of violent extremism.
This research collaboration, which is funded by European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant MULTIPREV, will be the solution to the three main issues in doing research on violent extremism. First, the theoretical issue, in which there hasn’t been a consensus on the characteristics and the cause of violent extremism. Second, the empirical issue that is due to the limited access on data population. Last, the methodological issue, which includes inadequate research design for its inability to analyze cause-effect, the lack of comparison study, and the dependency on qualitative data.
The Dean of Faculty of Psychology Universitas Indonesia, Dr. Bagus Takwin, M.Hum., Psychologist, states that the ERC Advanced Grant MUTIPREV research collaboration project will involve five countries: Indonesia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Colombia, and Philippines. The dean also reveals that, “The result of this study can hopefully be used to develop a prevention strategy for violent extremism in various country.”
This research will be conducted in a span of five years with a study ranging from general population to the specific population of violent extremism perpetrators inside the jail. The data will be extracted online as well as interviews inside and outside of the prison. The research design will include cross-sectional and longitudinal online experiment in order to reach a conclusion on the cause and effect of the emerging radicalization. The result of this empirical study can become the foundation in formulating a prove-based strategy and tools in predicting as well as preventing violent extremism.
As a part of this collaboration, Prof. Ángel Gómez and Prof. Alexandra Vázquez from UNED paid a visit to UI on June 9th-14th 2023. The discussion regarding this research is done by the delegation from UNED and the delegations from the Faculty of Psychology Universitas Indonesia, namely Prof. Hamdi Muluk; Dr. Mirra Noor Milla, S.Sos., M.Si. who is also the head of the Pscyhology Doctorate Program and the research collaborator involved in the research.
