Amy-Jane Gielen

Amy-Jane Gielen is an Associate Fellow at ICCT and an independent consultant on evidence-based policy-making at Evidence Based Work (EBW). A political scientist by training, Amy-Jane completed her PhD at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR), University of Amsterdam. With over 15 years of experience in researching violent extremism and P/CVE, she serves as a strategic policy adviser to ministries and municipalities, having conducted a significant number of evaluations of P/CVE measures. She has published numerous books, book chapters, and articles in peer-reviewed journals on this subject.

Amy-Jane has worked for the Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) of the European Commission, where she authored the first edition of the RAN Collection of Approaches and Practices. She has also participated in RAN working groups focusing on the internet, social media, and foreign fighters. Furthermore, she has delivered workshops and keynote speeches to over a thousand practitioners and policymakers across Europe on (the evaluation of) P/CVE. On behalf of the Dutch Ministries of Safety and Justice and Social Affairs, she co-developed a P/CVE evaluation toolkit for municipalities. Amy-Jane has also worked as an intervention provider in family support for foreign fighters and exit programmes. These combined experiences enable her to translate her academic work to various levels of government and practice.

Selection of recent (English) publications

Gielen, Amy-Jane & Zsofia Baumann (2021). The First Decade of the Global Counterterrorism Forum: Monitoring, Evaluating and Looking Forward. The Hague: Asser Instituut, 10 September 2021.

Gielen, Amy-Jane (2020). Cutting through Complexity. Evaluating Countering Violent Extremism (CVE). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Gielen, Amy-Jane (2019). “Countering Violent Extremism: A Realist Review for Assessing What Works, for Whom, in What Circumstances, and How?,” Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. 31 (6), pp. 1149-1167, https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2017.1313736

Gielen, Amy-Jane and Annebregt Dijkman (2019). “Evidence-Based Informed Policy Design for Support Groups for Families of Foreign Fighters: Ex Ante Application of Realistic Evaluation and Review,” Journal for Deradicalization, Vol. 20, pp. 232-271.

Gielen, Amy-Jane (2018a), “Exit Programmes for Female Jihadists: A Proposal for Conducting a Realistic Evaluation of the Dutch Approach,” International Sociology, Vol. 33 (4), pp. 454-472, https://doi.org/10.1177/0268580918775586.

Siekelinck, Stijn and Amy-Jane Gielen (2018). RAN Paper. Protective and promotive factors building resilience against violent radicalisation. Brussels: RAN Centre of Excellence.

Gielen, Amy-Jane (2017b). “Evaluating Countering Violent Extremism,” In: Lore Colaert (ed.), ‘De-radicalisation’. Scientific insights for policy. Brussels: Flemish Peace Institute.