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

Research institute

A research institute is an establishment endowed for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research...

 focused on insurgency

Insurgency

An insurgency is an armed rebellion against a constituted authority when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents...

, terrorism

Terrorism

Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...

, and transnational organized crime located at the University of New Haven

University of New Haven

The University of New Haven is a private university that combines a liberal arts education with professional training. The university comprises five colleges: the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Business, the Tagliatela College of Engineering, the Henry C...

 in West Haven, Connecticut

West Haven, Connecticut

West Haven is a city in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. According to 2006 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city is 52,721.-History:...

.

The organization's main mission is to aggregate, code, and analyze data

Data analysis

Analysis of data is a process of inspecting, cleaning, transforming, and modeling data with the goal of highlighting useful information, suggesting conclusions, and supporting decision making...

. The organization claims to have built the largest and most comprehensive open-source

Open source intelligence

Open-source intelligence is a form of intelligence collection management that involves finding, selecting, and acquiring information from publicly available sources and analyzing it to produce actionable intelligence...

 database on violent extremism

Extremism

Extremism is any ideology or political act far outside the perceived political center of a society; or otherwise claimed to violate common moral standards...

 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

Law enforcement agency

In North American English, a law enforcement agency is a government agency responsible for the enforcement of the laws.Outside North America, such organizations are called police services. In North America, some of these services are called police while others have other names In North American...

 in support of counter-terrorism

Counter-terrorism

Counter-terrorism is the practices, tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, militaries, police departments and corporations adopt to prevent or in response to terrorist threats and/or acts, both real and imputed.The tactic of terrorism is available to insurgents and governments...

.

History

ISVG was established in 2002 at Sam Houston State University

Sam Houston State University

Sam Houston State University was founded in 1879 and is the third oldest public institution of higher learning in the State of Texas. It is located in Huntsville, Texas. It is one of the oldest purpose-built institutions for the instruction of teachers west of the Mississippi River and the first...

 in Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 by Dr. Richard Ward, then dean

Dean (education)

In academic administration, a dean is a person with significant authority over a specific academic unit, or over a specific area of concern, or both...

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

Bureau of Justice Assistance

The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, within the United States Department of Justice.On Monday, December 13, 2010, President Barack Obama sent to the U.S. Senate the nomination of Denise Ellen O'Donnell, of New York, to be the Director of the Bureau, in...

 at the United States Department of Justice

United States Department of Justice

The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...

. 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

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

information.

In 2008, Dr. 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.

The original staff consisted of seven data collectors. Currently, ISVG has more than 90 personnel involved in collecting and analyzing open source information.