ITSTIME - Italian Team for Security, Terroristic Issues & Managing Emergencies, is a research project based at the Catholic University of Milan (Department of Sociology). Our multidisciplinary approach allows us to develop and conduct research focused on security issues from different perspectives. ITSTIME is a “project” because it addresses both theoretically and empirically the new challenges in the post 9/11 world.
The missions of the project are threefold:

To address Security , intended as a condition that results from the establishment and maintenance of protective measures able to promote citizens' wellness and democratic vitality of the institutions
To deal with Terrorism, as a long term threat that must be addressed through preventive and well-constructed measures
To Manage Emergencies in order to develop helpful practices both for citizens and institutions.

Security, terrorism and emergencies management are considered key elements of Homeland Security.

Thanks to studies, prevention activities and detailed analyses of terrorist threats, we address crises from a new perspective in order to manage crisis situations in a proactive way.

ITSTIME collaborates with public and private subjects interested in monitoring different types of threats, elaborating potential risk scenarios, planning prevention strategies, developing plans for responding to emergency situations, including natural disaster and anthropic events.

Over the last years, thanks to sophisticated software, approximately 50.000 files have been collected, stored and analyzed. In particular, our research has been focused on multimedia materials distributed by the terrorists through the Internet.

The editorial choice of ITSTIME is to publish only part of the findings of the research projects that have been carried out. In addiction, we share links, information and articles. There is no reference to the monitored web sites, or to the multimedia materials collected and studied, or to the strategic plans.

Academics, experts and operators are part of ITSTIME. Among others, members are the following.

Marco Lombardi, responsible for ITSTIME project, is associated professor at the Catholic University of Sacred Heart, where he teaches Crisis management and risk communication, Mass Communication theory and Sociology. He is member of the scientific board of the International Doctorate of Criminology, of the masters in Urban Security and in Relational Context of Emergency.
He co-ordinates the activities of the research group Environment, territory and security of the Department of Sociology and his research topics are mainly focused on crisis management, strictly related with terroristic issues.
He is member of the group of experts able to assist the European Commission in the field of justice, freedom and security and he co-operates with different institutional agencies involved on security.

Gabriele Crespi is professor of “Islam and Environment” at the Master of Urban Security at Catholic University of Milan. He has been teaching Islamic topics in different Universities (Cairo, Beiruth and Mogadiscio) and has been involved in several researches sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and private organizations (in Lybia and Maghreb Countries). He is member of BRISMES, British Society for Middle Eastern Studies; MESA, Middle East Studies Association of North America, University of Arizona ; I.M.A., Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; International Security Forum, Geneva; Crans Montana Forum, Munich and Cambridge Security Programme, Cambridge University. He is consultant at local government of Regione Lombardia for the Mediterranean Area and scientific director of Alta Scuola di Formazione per la Polizia Locale. Locale.

Nick Ridley was for 10 years an intelligence analyst at New Scotland Yard (including the Anti Terrorist Unit), and for the following 11 years was an intelligence analyst at Europol. At Europol he specialised in Eastern European Organised Crime and was responsable for the analysis of financing of terrorism. Whilst at Europol he was seconded to the FBI headquarters in Washington DC to work with analysts and agents on international financing of terrorism. He has trained law enforcement and banking personel in anti- money laundering in Romania , Bulgaria and Hungary . He has taught courses in investigative analysis and terrorism to Masters and PhD students at the Universita Cattolica in Milan. He is a senior researcher for the John Grieve Centre, London Metropolitan University, and is an associate of BakerPlatt, the anti money laundering specialists.

Alfredo Agustoni, researcher in Sociology at the "G. d'Annunzio" University of Chieti-Pescara , teaches Urban and Environmental Sociology and Sociology of Cultural Change. He is author of several books and articles and he is particularly interested in risk and security perception and communication, multiethnicity, housing and urban issues and policies, struggle and participation in local contexts.

Maria Alvanou, is a defence lawyer and a full professor of criminology at the Greek Police Officer's Academy. She lectures at the Police Officers' Post Educational Academy-Department of Thessaloniki on issues of National Security and Terrorism. She acquired her doctorate from the International PhD Program in Criminology of Transcrime (Joint Research Center on Transnational Crime, University of Trento & Catholic University of Sacro Cuore - Milan), where she was also an external collaborator. Her doctoral research was focused on Palestinian female suicide bombers and for this reason she conducted fieldwork in Israel. She has also obtained an LLM from the Department of History, Philosophy and Sociology of Law - Aristoteles University of Thessaloniki. Among her research interests in terrorism is aviation security- counterterrorism meaures and she is a special collaborator for 11Aviation Publications in Greece.

Chiara Fonio holds a PhD in Sociology and Methodology of the Social Research. Her PhD focused on CCTV in the city of Milan. She is teaching assistant in Sociology and Mass Communication theory at Catholic University of Milan since 2005. Her interests are: surveillance and security, ICTs and terrorism, surveillance technologies and privacy issues (in particular, video surveillance). Her task in ITSTIME is both to analyze terrorists' recruitment strategies through the Internet and to examine video and documents.

Giovanni Pisapia, born in Johannesburg (South Africa), is a candidate student of the International PhD Programme in Criminology at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, where he graduated in Political Science with a thesis on "Crime in the Republic of South Africa: Reasons, Current Situation and Possible Future Solutions". As a consultant for UNICRI (United Nations Interregional Crime & Justice Research Institute) he designed and implemented training activities on crime prevention and justice administration. At TOROC (Olympic Organizing Committee XX Olympic Winter Games) he was in charge of the co-ordination and co-operation, between the Committee & Italian Law Enforcement Agencies, of security planning and operations activities, of the development of security Policies, Procedures & Contingency Plans and of the Security Transfer of Knowledge..

Davide Scotti is psychologist, specialized in psychology of emergencies at University of Padua and in crisis management at the Catholic University. Along with a specific theoretical background he has been involved as a fireman at the Regional Center of Fireman – Regione Lombardia. He has been teaching psychology of emergencies, victims' and operator's traumatic deseases, social networks coping with traumatic events at Catholic University, Italian Red Cross, Civil Protection and Police. In particular he is in charged of fireman psychological support (Lombardia Regional Center) where started the project on Dispositivi di Protezione Relazionale. He was part of the security activities project in Sri Lanka promoted by Catholic University after 2005 tsunami.