The Institute for Digital Security and Behaviour (IDSB) at the University of Bath welcomes the publication of today’s Home Affairs Committee Report Combatting New Forms of Extremism and is pleased that evidence submitted by our researchers has helped shape its findings.
We are particularly encouraged to see our interdisciplinary research reflected in the report including work on fluid and hybridised ideologies, and the role of online spaces, social media and influencers. It is encouraging that this research has been recognised for its potential to inform policy and contribute to meaningful real-world impact.
We also welcome the report’s recommendations to anchor Prevent more firmly in the wider safe-guarding system and to support further research in this rapidly evolving field. Understanding online extremism is a fastmoving challenge, and sustained, robust inquiry is essential if responses from government, platforms and civil society are to keep pace with emerging threats.
This contribution highlights the breadth of expertise across the Institute, and we are proud that colleagues from across our teams played a role in shaping the evidence base.
Laura G E Smith, Professor of Psychology and Co-Director of the Bath Institute for Digital Security and Behaviour said; “Our research shows that online extremism today is not straightforwardly driven by ideology and occurs together with a variety of other harms that are mediated by the design of online platforms and in which young people may be exploited and groomed. Current intervention frameworks such as Prevent were not designed for this reality. In our evidence to the inquiry, we called for policies to move beyond single-threat characterisations towards coordinated, multiagency responses that support young people and treat interconnected online harms as structural, group-level phenomena.”
We would like to extend particular thanks to Institute member Will Smith, whose work in summarising IDSB research for the written evidence submitted to the Home Affairs Committee in July 2025 was invaluable to this process.
For anyone interested in the inquiry process, the recordings of the oral evidence sessions, including the session in which Laura appeared as a witness, are available on the Home Committee website.