About Us

Terrorist and violent extremist groups across the ideological spectrum recruit and radicalize children and young people at an escalating rate. By targeting the next generation, actors within the extremist threat ecosystem increase their immediate operational capabilities, sustain ideological momentum, embed their agenda into the future, and advance far-reaching and enduring objectives.

​

Child recruitment and radicalization is an intentional, calculated, and systematic strategy, and counter-terrorism and extremism efforts have not evolved at the same pace as the challenge. This asymmetry creates a fracture in international security policy and in our capacity to address extremist threats effectively, while inadvertently creating leverage points and strategic advantages that allow extremist actors to strengthen their operational capabilities and advance their long-term goals.

​

Next Wave is a pioneering thought leader in this arena and is the only institution globally that stands to focus on the necessary scope, focus, and strategic depth on one of the core pillars driving extremist activity, capacity, and continuity. We acknowledge that addressing the complex and evolving nature of the terrorist threat requires our own adaptation, and therefore, we are intentionally forward-looking in our understanding of children’s role—as a factor that exacerbates existing challenges, but also one that can, when effective intervention measures are implemented and sustained, provide new solutions to the threats we confront and help prevent new ones from materializing. Terrorists and extremists groom children to become the architects of the next wave of violence. We are here to challenge this status quo.

​