Events
AVERT regularly hosts events and webinars featuring the latest research on topics related to violent extremism, terrorism, radicalisation and countering violent extremism
Recent events
Rahel Kellich
PhD Candidate in Educational and Religious Science at Bielefeld University and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Online Event
Zoom
Thursday, 4 December 2025
11:30 AM – 12:30 PM AEDT
Education in Christian Fundamentalism: Current Developments and Challenges for Civic Education
This webinar will explore how upbringing and socialisation within Christian fundamentalist communities can influence the educational and social development of children and adolescents. While research on radicalisation has often focused on Islamist contexts, the impact of Christian fundamentalism—particularly in Europe—has received far less attention. Using Germany as an example, this presentation will outline key features of contemporary Christian fundamentalist groups and examine how their forms of authority and belief systems—such as exclusive truth claims, anti-pluralist worldviews, and binary thinking—shape young people’s views on autonomy, civic participation, and diversity.
The webinar will also highlight the growing international reach of Christian fundamentalist and evangelical networks, including their online presence through “Christfluencers” and algorithmic environments that circulate fundamentalist ideas across digital spaces. These examples will show how such worldviews adapt to modern media while maintaining core ideological frameworks.
By comparing these developments with the aims of civic education, this presentation will invite discussion on how educators can strengthen democratic values, autonomy, and critical reflection among young people.
Rahel Sarai Kellich is a doctoral researcher in Educational and Religious Science at Bielefeld University and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her dissertation focuses on religious fundamentalism, especially Christian fundamentalism and extremism, emphasizing the role of upbringing and education in democratic learning within these contexts. Her academic background includes studies at the University of Gothenburg and the University of Cologne, culminating in a master’s degree in educational science from TU Dortmund. Her current doctoral research is funded by the Heinrich Böll Foundation. She has professional experience in extremism prevention in both Jordan and Germany, the latter especially involving counselling and educational outreach with young people affected by Islamist radicalisation and their families. Her previous position at the German parliament highlighted the value of closer collaboration between academic research and political institutions, particularly in areas concerning education, extremism prevention, and the strengthening of democratic participation.
Overall, her trajectory reflects an interdisciplinary engagement with religion, education, and extremism prevention.
Dr Nell Bennett
Fellow at Blue Security, La Trobe Asia and the Blue Security Consortium
Editor, Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counterterrorism
Online Event
Zoom
Wednesday, 22 October 2025
17:00 - 18:00 AEDT
The Bureaucracy of Violence: Organisational Survival and the Challenge of Disengagement
Why do some terrorist groups keep going long after they’ve lost public support or any real chance of success? This webinar drew on new research to offer a fresh perspective: many violent extremist groups act less like movements with a cause, and more like organisations trying to survive.
Instead of focusing only on beliefs or radicalisation, this session looked at how internal structures, routines and self-preservation can drive group behaviour over time. It used ideas from organisational studies to explain how extremist groups can become stuck in patterns of violence, even when the original goal no longer makes sense.
For practitioners, this matters. If we want to design better counter-terrorism or disengagement strategies, we need to understand the internal workings of these groups: how decisions are made, how leaders hold power and how the group stays together. This is especially important in long-running or fragmented conflicts, where defeating an ideology isn’t enough. The session offered a new way of thinking about how extremist groups operate, and why they can be so hard to shut down.
Dr. Nell Bennett is a researcher with expertise in terrorism, political violence and strategic studies. Her work focuses on how violent organisations evolve, endure and end. She is currently a Blue Security Fellow with La Trobe Asia and the Blue Security Consortium, and editor of the Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counterterrorism.
She holds a PhD and Master of Research from Macquarie University and graduated from the Diploma in Law (LPAB) with the Stuart Spencer Prize for Academic Excellence. In addition to her academic work, Nell practises in criminal law at the Victorian Bar. She is the author of Euskadi ta Askatasuna: A Case Study on Terrorist Dynamics and the Fight to Survive (Oxford University Press, 2025) and editor of Strategic Minds and Terrorist Challenges in the Indo-Pacific (Routledge, 2025).
Event recordings
2025
AVERT Webinar with Dr Rik Peels - Cognitive and Behavioral Radicalization: An Explanatory Split
AVERT Webinar with Dr Joel Busher - Violence escalation and inhibition during far-right protest waves
AVERT Webinar with Dr Emma Belton - Public Release of the Profiles of Individual Radicalisation in Australia (PIRA) Database
AVERT Hybrid Event - 2025 Global Terrorism Index Launch
AVERT Webinar with Dr Julie Chernov Hwang - The Disbanding of Jemaah Islamiyah
AVERT Webinar with Dr Arie Perliger - Exploring the Religious Dimensions of American Far-Right Extremist Discourse
AVERT Webinar - Emerging Global Perspectives on Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism
Rethinking religion and radicalisation: The role(s) of religion in far-right extremist movements
AVERT Webinar with Dr Nell Bennett - The Bureaucracy of Violence: Organisational Survival and the Challenge of Disengagement
AVERT Webinar with Dr Keiran Hardy - How (Not) to Argue with a Sovereign Citizen
AVERT Webinar with Dr Imogen Richards - The Aesthetic Politics of Far-right Environmentalism
AVERT Webinar with Rahel Kellich - Education in Christian Fundamentalism: Current Developments and Challenges for Civic Education
2024
AVERT Webinar with Dr Mario Peucker - Understanding and Countering the Rise of the Far-Right
AVERT Webinar with Dr Suraj Lakhani - The nexus between videogaming and violent extremism
AVERT Webinar with Dr Aaron Y Zelin - The Evolution of the Islamic State
AVERT Webinar with Dr Julia Ebner - Is There a Language of Terrorists?
AVERT Webinar with Dr Imogen Richards - The Far Right and the Environment in Australia.
AVERT Webinar with Professor John Horgan - Terrorist Minds
AVERT Webinar - Research on Radicalisation Countering Radicalisation: Where have we got to and ways forward.
AVERT Webinar with Jade Hutchinson - “The Far-Right Online Ecosystem”: How a Network of Platforms and Devices Shape Far-Right Violent Extremism
AVERT Webinar with Dr Lauren Moulds and John Young - Rethinking CVE Interventions: a needs based approach to supporting extremists and terrorist offenders
AVERT Webinar with Professor Stuart Macdonald - “Outlinks”: Violent Jihadist Online Propaganda Dissemination Strategies
2023
AVERT Webinar with Professor Daniel Byman - The October 7th Attacks: Hamas Goals, Israeli Response and Global Impacts
AVERT Webinar with Professor Sébastien Brouillette-Alarie - Systematic review of the reliability and validity of risk tools for violent radicalization: Is the evidence base solid?
AVERT Webinar with Associate Professor David Malet - Ukraine Foreign Fighters: Volunteers on the Right Side or the Far-Right’s ISIS?
AVERT Webinar with Emma Belton - Understanding the progression to violence: Background characteristics and risk factors for radicalisation to violent extremism
AVERT Webinar with Dr Marc-André Argentino - QAnon as a New Religious Movement and its Implications for Violent Extremism
AVERT Webinar with Dr Vivian Gerrand - Understanding conspiritual radicalisation and militant wellness movements: harnessing alternative health capital?
AVERT Webinar with Professor Joel Busher - Pathways Towards and Away From Violence During Waves of Far Right Protest
AVERT Webinar with Professor Paul Thomas - The State of British Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE)
2022
AVERT Webinar with Dr Imogen Richards - Far Right Identitarianism and the Great Replacement Conspiracy in Australia
AVERT Webinar with Professor Jan-Willem van Prooijen - Belief in Conspiracy Theories and Extremism
AVERT Webinar with Annemarie van de Weert - The Role of Subjectivity in the Early Detection of Violent Extremism Among Youth
AVERT Webinar with Professor Maura Conway - Online Extremism and Terrorism: What to Watch for in 2022
2021
TSAS AVERT Religion and the Far Right 2
AVERT Webinar: Rethinking US Efforts on Counterterrorism: Toward a Sustainable Plan 20 Years after 9/11
AVERT Webinar - Afghanistan and the Return of the Taliban
AVERT Webinar with Associate Professor Tahir Abbas - Islamophobia, Reciprocal Radicalisation and CVE
Ryan Scrivens - Online Behaviour of Right Wing Extremists
AVERT Webinar with Professor Winnifred Louis: When Deradicalisation Goes Wrong?
Joint AVERT-TSAS Webinar: Religion and the Far Right
AVERT Webinar: Critical Perspectives on CVE and PVE
AVERT Speaker Series: Dr Shiri Krebs on “Counterterrorism & Predictive Technologies”
2020
AVERT International Speaker Series: Maura Conway
AVERT International Speaker Series: John Horgan
AVERT International Speaker Series: Dr Haroro J. Ingram and Dr Craig Whiteside
AVERT Webinar with Dr Helen Young
AVERT International Speaker Series: John Morrison on “Talking Stagnation”