The Institute for the Study of Violent Groups (ISVG) is a

research institute A research institute, research centre, research center or research organization, is an establishment founded for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research. Although the term often i ...

focused on

insurgency An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion against authority waged by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare from primarily rural base areas. The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric nature: small irregu ...

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

, and

transnational organized crime Transnational organized crime (TOC) is organized crime coordinated transnational crime, across national borders, involving groups or markets of individuals working in more than one country to plan and execute illegal business ventures. In ord ...

located at the University of New Haven in

West Haven, Connecticut West Haven is a city in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. It is located on the coast of Long Island Sound. At the 2020 census, the population of the city was 55,584. History Settled in 1648, West Haven (then known as West Farms) ...

. The organization's main mission is to aggregate, code, and analyze data. The organization claims to have built the largest and most comprehensive

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

database on

violent extremism Violent extremism is a form of extremism that condones and enacts violence with ideological or deliberate intent, such as religious or political violence. Violent extremist views can manifest in connection with a range of issues, including politics ...

and transnational threats, which can be accessed via the DAVE Data Access and Visualization Environment (D.A.V.E. ISVG provides this open-source data and analysis to federal, state, and local

law enforcement agencies A law enforcement agency (LEA) is any government agency responsible for the enforcement of the laws. Jurisdiction LEAs which have their ability to apply their powers restricted in some way are said to operate within a jurisdiction. LEAs ...

in support of

counter-terrorism Counterterrorism (also spelled counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, incorporates the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, business, and intelligence agencies use to combat or el ...

History

ISVG was established in 2002 at

Sam Houston State University Sam Houston State University (SHSU or Sam) is a public university in Huntsville, Texas. It was founded in 1879 and is the third-oldest public college or university in Texas. It is one of the first normal schools west of the Mississippi River and ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

by Dr. Richard Ward, then

dean Dean may refer to: People * Dean (given name) * Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin * Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk * Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean Titles * ...

of the College of Criminal Justice, through a grant from the

Bureau of Justice Assistance The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, within the United States Department of Justice. BJA provides leadership and assistance to local criminal justice programs that improve and reinforce the nat ...

at the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...

. ISVG was originally created to test the feasibility of using a relational database to identify trends, relationships, and tactics of terrorist groups using only

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

information. In 2008, Ward moved ISVG to the University of New Haven and began distributing its data collection efforts. In 2011, the ISVG launched its Violent Extremism Knowledge Base (VKB). The same year, it announced the Homeland Security Open Source Solution (HSOSS) with i2 Group, Inc.Retrieved from http://www.i2group.com/us/solutions/open-source/homeland-security-os on August 7, 2011. The original staff consisted of seven data collectors. Currently, ISVG has more than 90 personnel involved in collecting and analyzing open source information.

References

{{authority control Research institutes in Connecticut Research institutes established in 2002 2002 establishments in Connecticut Terrorism research institutes