by Caleb Fort
Daily Lobo
UNM may soon be part of the International Center for the Study of Terrorism.
The center, led by Penn State University's Kevin Murphy, will examine terrorism using the social sciences - why terrorists become radicalized and how the public reacts to acts of terrorism.
"There's a lot written about the psychology of terrorism," he said. "But very little of it is based on high-quality research."
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It is difficult to research terrorism, because terrorists and potential terrorists are uncooperative at best, he said.
There is no formal agreement or contract between UNM and Penn State but a collaboration that allows the universities to share resources, he said.
"I think it's more important right now that we've located some research groups at the University of New Mexico who can help us out," he said.
One thing that attracted Murphy to UNM was the Institute for Public Policy, he said.
"They're very strong at doing things like measuring public opinion," he said. "Since a lot of dealing with terrorism involves public perception, that's a big help."
Amelia Rouse, associate director of the institute, said she is excited about the collaboration. Most centers get funding before they exist, but the center is going to seek funding after it starts doing research, she said.
"We're really proud to be affiliated with such an entrepreneurial academic group," she said. "They care so much about what they're doing."
The center is also extraordinary because the members do not share an office, Murphy said.
"Instead of people coming together in a physical space, they're coming together on the Internet and the phone," he said.
The decentralized model allows many more people to participate in the center than would otherwise be possible, he said.
The center includes 21 universities, about half of which are in Europe, he said.
That diversity will help the center understand terrorism, he said.
"There's a lot more experience with terrorism in other parts of the world," he said. "Americans have relatively less experience and a more narrow experience with terrorism than the rest of the world. On the other hand, America brings some real strengths in terms of empirical research techniques."
Other universities in the center include Stanford and the University of Pittsburgh.
The official announcement of the center was made May 25 in London.
Murphy is working to put together a conference in October to assess the state of knowledge in the psychology of terrorism.
"We're trying to define very concretely what we know and what we should know," he said.
He hopes the center will help inform the government when it makes decisions.
"I think it's always important to do academically strong work, but you can't stop there," he said. "Anything we do ought to provide actable knowledge to policy-makers."
He said government officials often do not have enough information about why terrorist acts happen.
"It's partly because a lot of the work hasn't been done, but it's also partly because the work that has been done hasn't been presented in a way that's understandable to politicians," he said.
Penn State and UNM began working together in 2004, when they applied for a Department of Homeland Security grant to study terrorism. They lost to a consortium led by the University of Maryland.
"So we decided to go ahead anyway and expand what we wanted to do on to an international level," Murphy said.
Murphy said there will be challenges because of the decentralized nature of the center.
"Centers work best as a place for people to interact, and that will of course be harder when they are not in the same space," he said.
However, Rouse said the model will be good for UNM because it won't have to pay for buildings or new workers.
"It's not going to cost us anything that I'm aware of," she said.
