RAND-St Andrews database

The RAND-St Andrews database, also known as the RAND-St Andrews Chronology of Terrorism was a database of international terrorist incidents which was developed by Bruce Hoffman whilst he was at the University of St. Andrews, and was later taken maintained by students at the university.

The database had its origins in the RAND Terrorism Chronology Database first developed by Brian Jenkins at RAND in the 1970s, and started on 3” x 5” cards. Jenkins left the RAND Corporation to become a managing partner at Kroll Associates, and the datebase was taken over by Bruce Hoffman.

The database was essentially brought with Hoffman when he left RAND in 1993 to set up the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St. Andrews. At St. Andrews Donna Hoffman and doctoral candidate David Claridge continued to update the database with the assistance of various graduate students.

Bruce Hoffman and his wife left St. Andrews in December 1997 taking data from the chronology back to RAND. According to Alex Schmid the St Andrews database was thereafter run under the name 'CSTPV Database project' mainly by students.

It was discontinued in the original form due to the fact that MIPT continued the RAND database with more manpower than available at St. Andrews while at the same time the University of Maryland’s START centre of excellence also started a large database. CSTPV donated its events and profiling databases to START and now focuses its data gathering efforts on the collection and analysis of primary full-text and audio-visual documents from terrorist groups.