TRED

Translational Research & Education Development

The TRED team develops and tests evidence-based resources rooted in public health approaches to prevention. We aim to equip communities and practitioners with tools to prevent radicalization and violence and offer transparent, tested strategies to shore up capacity and build new skills. Our tools help create off-ramps from radicalization pathways and prevent persuasion by harmful online content, conspiracies, propaganda, and disinformation. TRED centers all of our work in the needs of targeted groups, survivors, and victims of hate and political violence, seeking to build solidarity, systemic resilience, and community cohesion rather than focusing on carceral and security-based solutions alone.

3 Core Goals

1. Design innovative, evidence-based tools that reach all communities and equip them with tangible strategies to recognize and intervene to prevent radicalization and violence
2. Provide evidence of what works and how to scale up nationally and globally
3. Shift the public and policy narrative toward a public health approach to intervention, focused less on securitized and carceral solutions that targets a violent fringe and more on building evidence-based, democratic, inclusive resilience in the mainstream

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ERIS

Extremism Research & Intervention Studio

The Extremism Research & Intervention Studio (ERIS) is home to PERIL’s work in the world of online communication. The ERIS team is responsible for maintaining PERIL’s deep knowledge of online cultures, mapping narratives and rhetoric of extremist and conspiracy theory spaces, and informing PERIL’s primary research and monitoring strategies. As PERIL’s design studio, ERIS houses PERIL’s groundbreaking work in video-based prebunking (attitudinal inoculation) and ongoing work disseminating these tools and techniques to local communities. ERIS is home to ongoing projects with government, private, and nonprofit partners including the Southern Poverty Law Center, Jigsaw, the Department of Homeland Security, and more.

3 Core Goals

1. To build, test, and share innovative, scalable digital tools that build resilience to extremism online
2. To develop evidence-based, non-securitized approaches to the challenges of online safety
3. To envision a future in which digital media serve the interests of community safety, inclusive social cohesion, and democratic resilience

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PERIL Global

PERIL Global seeks a world in which prevention approaches are as important as securitized ones in the fight against extremist violence. We seek common strategies to the challenges of democratic resilience. The PERIL Global team works to build international dialogue, learning, and partnership across national boundaries in order to enhance learning about promising practices in prevention and democratic resilience. This has included work on global pandemic conspiracy theories in partnership with foreign governments, in-person and virtual exchanges among practitioners, and the translation and adaptation of tools which are then tested for use across national populations.

3 Core Goals

1. Bolster dialogue and sharing of promising practices in prevention
2. Increase accessibility to resources, expertise, and lessons learned across borders, including with practitioners and experts in the Global South
3. Match the global circulation of hateful and antidemocratic content online with an equal effort to globally distribute and share evidence, resources, and innovative approaches to countering and preventing violence and harm

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Training

PERIL offers various training programs and webinars in a range of formats to cater to the needs of educators, practitioners, communities, and governments at the local, municipal, state, and federal levels. Our workshops and training programs are designed to help individuals and organizations build resilience against extremism and polarization. Our team of experts works diligently to develop research-based and data-driven training sessions that can be customized according to the needs of different organizations. Whether it is a workshop, webinar, or a comprehensive training program, we offer a range of formats to make our content more accessible to everyone.

If you are interested in training for your organization or agency, please contact periltrainings@american.edu.

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