Diplomacy is slow. Wars are not. What if foreign policy could move at the speed of a startup?

In a world of shifting alliances, emerging conflicts and geopolitical shocks, traditional diplomatic methods can feel sluggish.

Rather than set out detailed policies then hand them over for delivery (as often happens now) multidisciplinary teams could instead adapt ideas as they go.

In December 2024, UK minister Pat McFadden called for just this sort of change to the way that government works. He describes the new approach as ‘test and learn’. Nesta and BIT have just published a playbook on the same topic, setting out how to apply it throughout the policy cycle via a methods toolkit that can be deployed at each stage.

So what could happen when test and learn meets one of the government's oldest duties: foreign affairs? 

We have iterated and moved at pace with many aspects of foreign affairs before. Take international treaties, which have long evolved through iteration. 

Diplomats generally start formal discussion with a first draft, where much text has yet to be agreed. Then they refine the wording through a series of negotiations, eventually reaching a final agreement that is (hopefully) acceptable to all. Readers of political thrillers will have heard of diplomatic backchannels through which tentative ideas can also be tried out early. 

An even wider application of test and learn to foreign policy might create new opportunities. Imagine if UK trade negotiators regularly combined rapid digital simulations and input from citizens to test economic, social and political impacts in real-time.

But we might be on to something bigger than just the application of test and learn to foreign affairs.

What about the possibility of a whole new means of international relations where test and learn is a component – design diplomacy. 

While design and test and learn are not exactly the same thing, design thinking certainly forms a central plank of the test-and-learn approach. Design diplomacy includes test and learn, but goes way beyond that. 

Of course the term ‘design diplomacy’ is not new. In 2000, the former US ambassador to Denmark Richard Swett described the role of architecture in public policy in this way. And in 2016, Helsinki Design Week launched a series of playful discussions between diplomats and Finnish designers using the same term.

While pioneering, these efforts offer quite narrow takes on design diplomacy concerning only either architecture or a specific series of conversations. For our purposes, design diplomacy encompasses a much wider range of activities, from international relations between countries to international development to helping people get visas.

A source of inspiration for what design diplomacy might look like could be the now well-established field of science diplomacy. 

In 2010, the UK’s Royal Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science argued that foreign policy must keep pace with scientific and technological change. 

The two institutions helped to codify the idea of science diplomacy, where science is used to improve foreign relations through means such as facilitating international scientific collaboration and providing insights about international challenges like climate change. 

While science diplomacy had been practiced for a long time, providing a name and description helped to cement it.

Science diplomacy succeeded in formalising and scaling an approach that had been happening informally for years. Could the same be done for design diplomacy?

Borrowing from the way diplomats and researchers harnessed science to strengthen foreign relations and foreign relations to improve science, we can sketch out what design diplomacy might look like. There could be three parts to this: design in diplomacy, diplomacy for design, and design for diplomacy. 

First we have design in diplomacy – design changing the process of foreign policy. The application of test and learn is an example. Test and learn draws on design thinking and can be applied to foreign policy, changing the way diplomacy is done by making it more iterative and agile. 

Next we have diplomacy for design, where diplomacy assists design. World fairs and international exhibitions such as the World Design Congress have long provided opportunities for designers from across the world to meet and exchange ideas. 

In the future, specialist design diplomats could help broker contracts for domestic design companies, or engage designers more closely in tackling international challenges like climate change by applying their skills to things like emissions trading schemes. 

The flipside of diplomacy for design is design for diplomacy  – where design helps achieve the goals of diplomacy.

Take Sweden's embassy in Washington DC that, through design, seeks to physically represent Sweden's values of openness, transparency and democracy. Or the European Union flag, which was designed to build a shared sense of belonging and unity among member states. 

Another example are exchange programmes suitable for designers such as Fulbright scholarships and the European Union’s Erasmus+ programme which can help strengthen international relations through design.

In the future, there is an opportunity to harness design even more intentionally to build soft power. 

Over the last half century, the scope of design has expanded from products to brands to services to strategy. Foreign affairs could be the next frontier. 

The world is changing fast. Diplomacy must evolve with it.