The Conflict, Violence and Terrorism Research Centre (CVTRC) at Royal Holloway aims to carry out inter-disciplinary, and methodologically rigorous, research on conflict, violence and terrorism. The CVTRC’s research focuses upon the act of violence itself; the motivations and rationale of violent actor(s); the contemporary and historical contexts in which violence takes place; violent spaces; the antecedents of violence; the social, political and other consequences of violence; representations of violence in news media, film, and literature; memories of violence and commemoration; and conflict resolution and peace-building efforts.
This inter-disciplinary approach is reflected in the academic backgrounds of the Centre Research Fellows who hail from a range of disciplines including History, Law, Terrorism Studies, Politics, International Relations, Economics, Geography, and Psychology.
The principle aims of the centre include:
- To carry out innovative inter-disciplinary research on violence, conflict and terrorism.
- To host conferences, symposia, workshops and guest speaker events.
- To serve as a hub to attract grant funding.
- To provide an intellectual home to the growing cohort of PGT and PGR students studying conflict and terrorism. These include the newly launched MSc Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism (Law); new MA History: Histories of Conflict and Violence pathway (History); the MSc. in International Security (PIR), in addition to the numerous PhD and MRes students supervised on these topics across RHUL.
- To attract new cross-college PhD students.
- To serve as a hub for engaging with policymakers, practitioners, and publics.
Staff
Founding Director
Akil Awan
Dr Akil N Awan is Senior Lecturer in Modern History and Political Violence. His research interests are focused around the history of terrorism, radicalization, social movements, protest, religion, gender, and new media. He has written widely in these areas, both academically and in the popular press, and is regularly consulted by government bodies, think-tanks, media and other organizations in his fields of expertise. He has served in an advisory capacity to the United Nations, UK Home Office, the Foreign Office, the US State Dept., Council of Europe, NATO and the OSCE amongst others. He is Founder and Chair of the Political Science Association’s Specialist Group on Political Violence & Terrorism. His books include Radicalisation and Media: Terrorism and Connectivity in the New Media Ecology (2011, Routledge), Jihadism Transformed: al-Qaeda and Islamic State’s Global Battle of Ideas (2016, Hurst/Oxford University Press), The Crusades in the Modern World (2019, Routledge), Radicalisation: A Global and Comparative Perspective (2023, Hurst/Oxford University Press), and ISIS and its Western Recruits: Narratives, Identities and Radicalisation (forth. 2025, Cambridge University Press). He is on Twitter: @Akil_N_Awan
Co-Director
Elizabeth Pearson
Dr. Elizabeth Pearson is a Senior Lecturer and Programme Lead for the MSc in Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism Studies. She is an Associate Fellow with the London-based think tank RUSI, the Royal United Services Institute, and with the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) in the Hague. Her research interests are gender, extremism, and counter-extremism. Elizabeth’s 2023 book, Extreme Britain: Gender Masculinity and Radicalisation is published with Hurst and OUP and explores gender in UK Islamist and radical right networks. She is also a co-author of Countering Violent Extremism: Making Gender Matter (Palgrave, 2021). Before academia Elizabeth was a radio journalist at the BBC, mainly for Radio 4.
Senior Research Fellows
Dr Janina Beiser-McGrath (PIR)
Dr Michelle Bentley (PIR)
Dr Tom Dyson (PIR)
Dr Yoav Galai (PIR)
Prof. Sandra Halperin (PIR)
Dr. Mohammad Kalantari (PIR)
Dr Daniela Lai (PIR)
Prof. Ben O’Loughlin (PIR)
Dr Alexander Gilder (Law)
Dr Anthony Richards (Law)
Dr Matthew Clement (Law & Criminology)
Prof. Giovanni Travaglino (Law & Criminology)
Prof. Andrew Silke (Law & Criminology)
Dr Andrew Whiting (Law & Criminology)
Prof. Mike Spagat (Economics)
Dr Dan Beer (History)
Dr Patrick Doyle (History)
Dr Simone Gigliotti (History)
Prof. Helen Graham (History)
Dr Becky Jinks (History)
Dr Edward Madigan (History)
Dr Chi-Kwan Mark (History)
Prof. Dan Stone (History)
Doctoral Research Fellows
This section will be updated with more information shortly.
Further Information
Associated Teaching Programmes
This section will be updated with more information shortly.
Impact and Engagement
This section will be updated with more information shortly.
