Committee urges more terrorism research

Norway's government must support more research into extremism and terrorism to prevent radicalisation and attacks, an advisory panel has said.

The panel was commissioned by the Research Council of Norway to draw up a plan for future research into these areas. Although the establishment of the Center for Research on Extremism has been an important contribution to national research efforts, the field is still undersized, the panel found.

“Extremism, terrorism and radicalisation can be understood as stubborn social problems that are seemingly unsolvable,” the report said. “There are issues that cross geographical, social, cultural and administrative borders and that are characterised by complexity and uncertainty. The government’s measures to deal with radicalisation and terrorism and their impact are not sufficiently identified.”