ICSR was launched in January 2008 at the First International Conference on Radicalisation and Political Violence in London. During this conference, UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith launched the government's new anti-terror initiative.[5]
ICSR conducts independent research and describes its mission as follows:[6]
... to bring together knowledge and leadership. Producing first class, rigorous research, our aim is to educate the public and help policymakers and practitioners find more intelligent solutions in dealing with radicalisation and political violence.
A report published by the ICSR in 2023, showed data on the support by children terrorist networks and displayed the potential threats that they possess. The report showed that from 2016 to 2023 in the UK 43 individuals were convicted of committing terrorist offences as a minor, in which 42 of them were boys and the youngest was 13 years old at the time of the offence.[9]
In 2019, Peter R. Neumann told CNN that the ICSR had seen an increase in right-wing terrorist violence and hate crimes in Western countries over the past five years.[10]
The ICSR published a report in 2018 stating that between April 2013 and June 2018, 41,490 international citizens from 80 different countries had joined the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.[11][12] It also stated that about 25% of the international citizens affiliated to ISIS were women and children.[13][14]
In August 2017, ICSR published a report on the impact of Turkey's conflict with the PKK on the Syrian Civil War and Iraqi Kurdistan.[15]
In October 2016, ICSR published a report on European jihadists and the crime-terror nexus.[20][21]
In previous years, reports by the ICSR have ranged from the topics such as the narratives of Islamic State defectors,[22][23] to neo-Nationalist networks.
In addition to reports, the organisation also regularly publishes papers as well as short pieces of analysis, called "ICSR Insights", on their website.[24] Its research fellows often feature as contributors to media pieces.
Netherlands' newspaper NRC Handelsblad on 19 November 2014 interviewed Shiraz Maher, then 'coordinator of the research' of the organisation, about his insights on European jihadists joining Islamic State in Syria, their motives, etc. Maher advocates to give those jihadists who after several months decide to return home to Europe, a fair chance: "Of course, some of those people are truly evil--those you must arrest the second they step out of the plane." But "not everyone going to Syria is a terrorist". "You must give those who want to step out of it, a chance to do so, otherwise they'll remain jihadist the rest of their lives".[27]
The organisation has been accused of inaccuracy in its April 2014 report '#Greenbirds: Measuring Importance and Influence in Syrian Foreign Fighter Networks'.[citation needed] The report claimed that one of the subjects studied in the report was based in the West,[citation needed] whereas he denied this via his Twitter page[28] and clarified that he had not been based in the West at all since the study was said to have begun.
