Paul Thomas

Professor Paul Thomas

Professor Paul Thomas is the REF Unit of Assessment (UoA) Coordinator for UoA23 Education. Paul researches under the ‘Education’s contribution to family and social cohesion’ theme, specifically on education’s contribution to building community cohesion and to the prevention of violent extremism.

Paul’s research around preventing violent extremism and the UK’s Prevent Strategy has led to two successive 4* REF Impact Case studies, giving oral evidence to the House of Commons inquiry around Prevent and presentations to other national governments. Paul’s research on Community Reporting Thresholds (with Visiting Professor Michele Grossman of Deakin University, Australia) directly informed the ‘Act Early’ campaign and web resource operated by the UK’s National Counter-Terrorism Police Headquarters. Paul’s research focuses on how policies are understood and enacted at the practice level.

Paul is currently Co-Principal Investigator on the research project Addressing the Know-Do Gap in Community Reporting for Terrorism and Targeted Violence Prevention (2024-26, Funded by Department for Homeland Security, USA), with UCLA, University of Illinois, Georgia State University (all USA), Deakin University (Australia) and Toronto Metropolitan University (Canada). This project analyses the existing evidence base on ‘intimate bystander’ reporting of potential violent extremist involvements and existing attempts in different national settings to encourage it in support of the development of policy and practice approaches which will increase intimate bystander reporting in the USA.

Recent Research Projects

Victoria State Government/CRIS (Deakin University) Australia (2020 -present) – Changing patterns of terrorist recruitment. Co-Investigator.

US National Institute of Justice (2019-2021) – Research on barriers to and concerns around reporting the involvement of ‘intimates’ in violent extremism. Joint PI (with Prof. David Eisenman, UCLA; Prof. Steve Weine, University of Illinois; and Prof. Michele Grossman, Deakin University, Australia).

Public Safety Canada (2019-2021) – Research on barriers to and concerns around reporting the involvement of ‘intimates’ in violent extremism. Joint PI (with Prof. Sara Thompson, Ryerson University and Prof. Michele Grossman, Deakin University, Australia).

ESRC/Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST) (2016/17) – Research on barriers to and concerns around reporting the involvement of ‘intimates’ in violent extremism or travel to conflict zones. My role: Joint PI (with Prof. Michele Grossman, Deakin University, Australia). 

Other research interests:

Paul continues to research community cohesion and practices that support it, having recently completed research in West Yorkshire with the Jo Cox Foundation. Paul is an Editorial Board member of the leading journal Terrorism and Political Violence.

More information on Paul’s research can be found here:  Paul Thomas — University of Huddersfield Research Portal