Turning expertise into action - the strong point of the social sciences

The Conseil scientifique sur les processus de radicalisation1  (COSPRAD) set up in 2017 is an interministerial body under the direct authority of the French Prime Minister. The COSPRAD promotes and facilitates dialogue between researchers on the one side and representatives of the police, security, intelligence, justice and education sectors on the other. 

The aim of fostering such dialogue between institutions, politicians and scientists is to share and understand more about research into violent radicalisation and to make proposals to feed into public policies aimed at preventing and combating radicalisation. The COSPRAD's work produces a series of tangible actions including providing support for research teams through calls for expressions of interest2 , organising conferences, thematic workshops and scientific meetings to promote cross-exchanges based on research and publishing explanatory documents on key concepts such as videos promoting the dissemination of research for both an informed audience and the general public, and so on.

One example is the scientific meeting held on October 21st 2024 on mapping and the dynamics of contemporary radical right-wing activism in Canada. A few days later, a thematic workshop took place on gendered disinformation and toxic communication on TikTok through the prism of the digital uses of young people. Both meetings were led by Samuel Tanner, a professor at the Université de Montréal and director of its school of criminology.

From academic origins to an interministerial base

"The COSPRAD originated from a call for projects launched in the wake of the 2015 attacks (in France) by Alain Fuchs, then President of the CNRS," explains Françoise Paillous. "The dual aim was to support new projects and take stock of research into violent radicalisation". Ms Paillous is a CNRS research engineer who has spent her career in various senior management positions and is now the COSPRAD's general secretary, working alongside its scientific coordinator Antoine Mégie, a senior lecturer in political science at the University of Rouen Normandy.

An initial report was submitted to the Secretary of State for Research in 2015 highlighting the importance of making research results better known to public authorities. The idea of setting up the COSPRAD was introduced in 2016 in the framework of the government's Action Plan against Radicalisation and Terrorism (PART). The COSPRAD was officially founded in 2017 by a decree and then bolstered by a subsequent text in December 2018 which widened its scope and strengthened its missions. "The COSPRAD's mission is to promote dialogue between public institutions and scientists to raise awareness of research and thus inform public action," explains Françoise Paillous. "The COSPRAD's scientific advisory board means it can identify research projects and areas under study, disseminate scientific knowledge, facilitate access for scientists to data that may be sensitive, and share and promote humanities and social sciences research results". 

The COSPRAD is something of an originality in the landscape of French and international public institutions. It includes representatives of departments from the ministries of the Interior, National Education, Higher Education and Research, the Armed Forces and Justice, an interministerial department, the General Commissioner for Territorial Equality, the General Secretary of the Interministerial Committee for the Prevention of Delinquency and Radicalisation, the Chairman and CEO of the CNRS, a university president, a member of parliament, a senator, representatives of associations of local councillors and thirteen humanities and social sciences researchers. Finally, the CNRS Chairman and CEO Antoine Petit is the COSPRAD''s vice-chairman.

Serving prevention and education

One example of the COSPRAD's work was its collaboration with the Ministry of National Education, Higher Education and Research in support of teachers who faced questions from their pupils or their families during the trial for the murder of the French teacher Samuel Paty. "Our training resources and content are always based on research input," insists Frédéric Brouzes, the schools and educational action advisor at France's General Directorate for School Education (DGESCO). "The diversity and wealth of research help schools avoid being closing in on themselves and encourage them to think about their transformations by combining the sociological, cognitive, epistemological, psychological and social dimensions of the various phenomena affecting them".

The DGESCO is a department of France's Ministry of National Education, Higher Education and Research and is responsible for designing and supporting education policies. It is involved in the implementation of all preventive policies within French schools and is also in charge of coordinating preventive policies linked to the radicalisation process. This is why the government's director general of education is also a member of the COSPRAD.

The DGESCO ran a national training programme in conjunction with the COSPRAD during the 2024-2025 period and supported this with a self-training course taken by nearly 3000 staff. Frédéric Brouzes explains that "this training programme aimed to anticipate the period of the trials of Samuel Paty's murderer's accomplices and help all our staff members deal with pupils' potential reactions by choosing the right solutions, using vocabulary that is both precise and appropriate and implementing medium- and long-term educational and teaching actions and security-based responses with the overall goal of reassuring them in their professional activities. Research is required to clarify concepts relating to radicalisation which is an extremely complex issue to grasp and deal with in schools."

From the police to the intelligence services

"Unlike in English-speaking countries, the French intelligence community wasn't in the habit of looking into the research side of things", explains Jean-Michel Avon. He is the controller general of the Sub-Directorate for the prevention of terrorism, identitarian withdrawal and urban anomalies within the National Directorate for Territorial Intelligence (DNRT) which is under the supervisory authority of the Ministry of the Interior (or home affairs). This sub-directorate supervises the monitoring of individuals registered in the Fichier de traitement des signalements pour la prévention de la radicalisation à caractère terroriste (FSPRT)3 , and liaises with France's other intelligence services, under the supervisory authority of the General Directorate for Home Security (DGSI). "Taking part in the COSPRAD helps us build bridges," continues Jean-Michel Avon. "I analyse the phenomena of radicalisation from my standpoint as a police officer but that input needs to be complemented. We often need to move fast and are shaken up by current events so we don't necessarily have the same perspective as researchers".

Interdisciplinary research involving fields like sociology, psychology or linguistics particularly interests the police to find out more about the paths taken by individuals leading to their involvement in violent radicalism, particularly given that some perpetrators of violent acts of terrorism go through a long process to get to that point whereas others take action much quicker. "The concept of radicalisation is very complex and it's become a media issue and got distorted over time," regrets Jean-Michel Avon. "The COSPRAD is an ideal way of getting some perspective on these issues. The fact that it's under CNRS supervision is a guarantee of trust, seriousness and quality".

The COSPRAD is indeed one of the "rare forums for exchanges between the major institutional and academic spheres", adds a project leader (who wishes to remain anonymous) from the Directorate General for International Relations and Strategy (DGRIS) which is part of the Defence Strategy, Forward Planning and Counter-Proliferation Directorate. "We take part in plenary meetings to identify subjects requiring further study and projects for funding". The DGRIS is part of the COSPRAD and has a budget to support academic research and prospective studies.

This DGRIS project leader is an expert in political and radical Islam and studies its various different currents in France and other countries. He highlights the fact that discussions at the COSPRAD feed into the thinking of both spheres and enable institutional stakeholders to share their concerns. "The humanities and social sciences shed light on themes we wouldn't necessarily have identified because we don't have the time to look at everything that's being done in researchwhich broadens the scope of our analyses."

"We work on the same themes but from different angles. The COSPRAD is a space where these different perspectives can be brought together in an interdisciplinary way", adds Nicolas Lebourg, a historian specialising in the far right at the Centre d'études politiques et sociales - santé, environnement, territoires4 . Mr Lebourg is a member of a team that won the first call for expressions of interest launched in 2023 by the MITI, the CNRS more generally and the COSPRAD for its programme on the internationalisation of extreme right-wing networks since the war in Ukraine. He also works regularly with qualified COSPRAD members like Isabelle Sommier, a specialist in ultra-left radicalism working at the Sorbonne's European Centre for Sociology and Political Science.

"One example came when I submitted a report to the prison administration on the analysis of people arrested as a result of the wave of ultra-right-wing extremism that started in 2017," continues Nicolas Lebourg. "In this report, the researcher compares these individuals' militant backgrounds with INSEE data and shows they come from very specific socio-economic areas which makes prevention easier because we've got more of an idea of where to look. The police and the legal system don't necessarily have the time or resources to carry out this kind of work, it's not their job", he concludes.

• 1The COSPRAD, the national scientific council on the radicalisation process, is led by the CNRS and the Institut des hautes études du ministère de l'Intérieur (IHEMI).
• 2Jointly run with the CNRS Mission for Transversal and Interdisciplinary Initiatives (MITI).
• 3File for processing reports for the prevention of terrorist radicalisation (FSPRT)
• 4Centre for Political and Social Studies - Health, Environment and Territories (CEPEL, CNRS/University of Montpellier.