Collaboration Outcomes

Harvard is a natural center of collaboration. The University assembles public diplomacy experts who, even within their own governments, often find themselves divided into isolated silos defined by funding rather than mission. Harvard’s potential role in public diplomacy goes beyond establishing a forum for exchanging expertise and ideas; it also allows for long-term planning and implementation of coordinated efforts. As the head of the US Public Diplomacy Council said, the US Government’s “public diplomacy effort will always be understaffed, under-funded, and reactive.” Harvard, meanwhile, can serve as a “resource for continuity” for inherently short-term-oriented administrations dealing with long-term concerns.


In America, there are only a few thousand professional public diplomacy practitioners, yet there are tens of millions of public diplomacy influencers. Exchange students, soldiers deployed overseas, TV and film producers, international volunteers, missionaries, symphony orchestras, corporate employees working around the world—all are citizen diplomats, consciously or not.


The goals are simple: to connect key nodes of public diplomacy practice to one another and to put vital information and tactics into the hands of practitioners, regardless of location or sector.


Many US allies similarly struggle to develop their public diplomacy strategies. Nations and national organizations sharing America’s interests can work together via the PD Collaborative to promote liberal democratic values worldwide. Effective communication of our shared values demands a long-term vision and, if done effectively, paves a road toward fostering respectful and enriching international discourse.

Current Initiatives >

Practitioner Events

1) Conference: Public Diplomacy and the New US Administration

This conference would convene PD experts from multiple sectors—emphasizing outside-the-beltway scholars and practitioners—to create dialogue with and provide non-partisan advice to the administration on strategies for restoring America’s international credibility. Since improving America’s image is also in the interest of US allies, international perspectives would be integral to this event.

2) Conference: Public Opinion and the Warming of the Arctic

This conference would convene practitioners, strategists, and related stakeholders from arctic nations to explore the PD challenges and opportunities resulting from the warming of the arctic. Participants would examine the issues and outcomes, including how public opinion could be tapped to advocate for more cohesive global policies governing the arctic and the effect that warming will have on indigenous populations.


3) Conference: Sharing Regional Expertise

A follow-up to the broader PD conferences, these regional meetings would, for example, bring together Hollywood producers and military commanders with an interest in Latin America, and/or cultural diplomacy practitioners and exchange program providers who focus on Russia.


4) Executive Education: Empowering Cultural Diplomats

This series would initiate the critical discussion of how cultural diplomacy could affect policy, leadership, governance, and security/peace building efforts. Cultural resources including art, dance, and music—indigenous and mainstream—could and should be a critical part of PD.


5) Executive Education: Citizen Diplomacy

These executive seminars would target participants in sectors unaware or under-aware of their PD role—volunteer organizations, study abroad program providers, eco-tourism businesses/agencies—to discuss best practices and how to interact more effectively on a global basis. The seminars would educate each group about their potential role in creating a role for the citizen diplomat and offer respectful, concrete training in each sector’s own terms.


6) Seminar Series: Learning from Distinguished Practitioners

These seminars would bring together experts from related fields such as conflict management, human security, corporate ethics, civil society development, peace-keeping, international education, and sustainable development to conduct lectures, hold workshops, and produce papers to educate the PD community on how to interact with and speak to professionals in terms appropriate to their specific fields.


Practitioner Products

1) Publications: Regional Field Manuals for Citizen Diplomats

The PD Collaborative will spearhead the research, writing and publication of regional field manuals based on the Regional PD conferences and designed for citizen diplomats. The manuals will offer practical tools for grassroots messaging.

2) Online Networking Technology for Public Diplomacy Practitioners

High-quality online networking technology is essential to ensure that the effect of the PD Collaborative extends beyond the doors of its conference rooms. Using the latest interactive, web-based resources to offer opportunities for publication and discussion, such technology would aid in building, clearly defining and sustaining long-term, engaged relationships. It would provide a near-open resource—an online venue where people could discuss their role in PD, establish best practices for the field, and generate new ideas for PD tactics.

Academic Events

1) Conference: Measuring the Effectiveness of Public Diplomacy

Measurement has been the Achilles’ heel of public diplomacy. The lack of metrics threatens to provide justification for the withdrawal of badly needed funding. This conference will be dedicated to the development of quantitative data to track public diplomacy’s effectiveness. Potential conference contributors include:

2) Conference: Enhancing Public Diplomacy Region by Region

Most current discussion of US public diplomacy focuses on “Countering Ideological Support to Terrorism,” leading to two pitfalls: a concentration on the Middle East, under-serving important zones of ideological ferment such as Latin America, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, and Africa; and, a tendency to be reactive rather than proactive.

In partnership with Harvard’s centers of expertise, this conference series would target neglected zones, bringing together representatives from as many sectors as possible (e.g. aid, military, international exchange) to brainstorm proactive, regionally appropriate PD tactics.

Each conference would aim to create an alternative national or regional plan complementing the (confidential) plans created by US Embassies and providing guidance for non-governmental actors and allied nations.

Academic Products

1) Visiting Scholars Program

Visiting Scholars would bring diplomatic leaders from both developing and developed countries to Harvard for periods of residency ranging from a semester to a year. The visiting scholars would be active as staff, informing committee work at the PD Collaborative and delivering lectures at area universities.

2) Fellows Program

The PD Collaborative would offer one to two fellowships each semester for practitioners and professionals who bring a broad range of expertise from sectors including cultural diplomacy, non-sovereign state public diplomacy, public relations/public affairs, entertainment, and other topics germane to the PD field. Fellows also could assist and interact with faculty in conducting relevant research.

3) Academic Journal on Public Diplomacy

There is currently no academically rigorous, peer-reviewed journal devoted to the field of public diplomacy – leaving scholars producing important social science research with no choice but to scatter their work in indirectly related policy journals.

The PD Collaborative would produce a biannual journal on public diplomacy and the domestic politics of foreign policy, which would serve as a vehicle for relevant, leading public diplomacy research. As such, it would complement the practice-based materials and workshops of the PD Collaborative and move the field of public diplomacy forward. An online version also would be available.