Reinier Bergema

Reinier Bergema (“terror expert”)
Nationality	Dutch
Alma mater	Leiden University, Purdue University
Member of	Clingendael Institute, JASON Institute/Board, The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies
Interests	• “radicalisation” • “terrorism”
Dutch "terror expert"

Reinier Bergema

Reinier Bergema is a Research Fellow and Project Manager at the ICCT. Over the past five years, he worked at the interface of (actionable) research and policy for a wide variety of clients, including, but not limited to, the Netherlands’ Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands’ National Police, NATO, and Europol. He holds a dual Master’s degree in Political Science (International Relations) and Public Administration (Crisis and Security Management), both from Leiden University. His research interests include, inter alia, radicalization, and (jihadist) foreign fighters, and the terrorist threat across Europe.

From 2014 onwards, Reinier has conducted research on Dutch jihadist foreign fighters, travelling to Syria and Iraq since the violent escalation of the conflict in 2011, combining quantitative and qualitative research methods. Part of this research involved the setup of a (quantitative) dataset, consisting of over 230 Dutch jihadists who remain(ed) in Syria and Iraq.

Over the years, he frequently commented and published on a variety of terrorism- and counterterrorism-related topics in different outlets, including Foreign Policy, The Independent, NRC, De Volkskrant, the International Peace Institute (IPI), Bellingcat, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, and Clingendael’s Planetary Security Initiative. In addition to his work at the ICCT, he is part of the editorial team of Perspectives on Terrorism and a member of the General Board of the JASON Institute. Prior to the ICCT, Reinier was a strategic analyst at The HCSS and a research assistant at Leiden University’s Centre for Terrorism and Counterterrorism.

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