Today, the Knowledge Diplomacy Project (University of London Institute in Paris) and the Mapping the Arts and Humanities Project (School of Advanced Study, University of London) are launching the Knowledge Diplomacy Mapping Initiative (KDMI). The Initiative turns years of events, partnerships, and infrastructure research into an interactive space where you can explore, search, filter, and act. With the KDMI tool, you can find collaborators, represent your own infrastructure and connections, making your work visible to wider audiences while also helping you see how fellow collaborators and their infrastructures connect and interact.

Our most experimental output yet, the KDMI resource was put together as a space to help us think about the different forms that Knowledge Diplomacy takes (and how it might be described, to make partnerships more visible, and to represent cross-sector and international collaborations).

➡️ Read our previous blog post, “Launching Soon: The Knowledge Diplomacy Mapping Initiative,” for a detailed preview of the tool and a discussion of its wider context and key stakeholders.

➡️ Read our previous blog post on “Mapping Knowledge, Building Trust,” to explore the humanistic vision that underpins the initiative and frames mapping as an act of trust-building

What’s new

The KDMI tool is the first map produced by the Mapping the Arts and Humanities Project that has two complementary views: one static with international data provided by the Knowledge Diplomacy Project and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, and a dynamic one that is being updated daily from the Mapping the Arts and Humanities database.

The reason for the two-view approach is to provide a quick and effective way to conduct geographical mappings that can serve as the basis for more expansive mapping initiatives to come. It’s a starting point that has helped us identify key areas of collaboration and opportunity, setting the methodological groundwork for a more ambitious international and cross-sectoral expansion.

View 1 – Knowledge Diplomacy Project and SAS-based Collaborations

As we briefly outlined in “Launching Soon: The Knowledge Diplomacy Mapping Initiative,” View 1 presents a clean map of the Knowledge Diplomacy Project’s partners and activities (2019-2025), plus a timeline you can filter by event type. We have further enhanced this view by incorporating SAS-based international partnerships, making it more helpful for collaborators who want to immediately identify a more extensive network of potential partners. It’s a quick way to understand who has been involved and where, and to navigate via organisation type (university, cultural body, government, etc.).

View 2 – Mapping the Arts and Humanities (live dataset)

This is a UK-based view of primarily research-based infrastructures, representing a subset of infrastructures tagged with any of the following keywords: “Diplomacy,” “International Relations,” “Education,” “Political Science,” and “Policy.” This view is connected directly to the live Mapping the Arts and Humanities Project’s database and refreshes automatically every 24 hours, so the picture evolves with the sector. It’s the fast path from a broad question (“who’s working on X?”) to a shortlist you can act on.

Filtering

The filtering structure is designed for both broad exploration and specific enquiry. You can search by infrastructure name, stack up to three tags, and choose AND/OR logic to narrow or broaden results. We have also introduced a new filtering capability: you can now filter by general type, as with View 1 (e.g., university-based, learned society/association, IRO). Moreover, there is a “funding only” toggle to surface infrastructures that provide funding.

As you apply these filters, both the results list and every visual update in real time, so you can test a hypothesis in seconds (e.g., “policy” + “migration studies” within university-based infrastructures only).

 A small but telling discovery from our testing phase: no infrastructures currently self-tag using “knowledge diplomacy.” That gap is precisely why the Knowledge Diplomacy Mapping Initiative was put together – to make implicit work legible and to encourage the utilisation of a shared vocabulary across communities of practice.

Visualisations

We have created visualisations to answer “who, what, how” at a glance and to reveal patterns that we might otherwise miss in a list.

Most Used Tags (bar chart): Shows the dominant themes associated with the “Policy,” “Diplomacy,” “International Relations,” “Political Science,” “Education” subset of the dataset.

Top Funding Sources: A new, experimental visualisation that shows which funders recur across your filtered set.

Paired Most/Least Associated Tags (word clouds): Contrasts common intersections with under-connected areas that could signal opportunity.

The Tag Relationship Network: Maps how themes and subject areas co-occur.

The Infrastructure Relationship Graph: Renders connections (hosting, ancestry links, sustained collaborations) so you can see clusters by type or focus. Combine it with the “type” or “tag” filters to see infrastructures most relevant to you.

Everything responds dynamically to your filters and remains exploratory by design. Because the underlying data reflects how infrastructures self-describe (and sometimes this data might be incomplete, though we do our best to ensure its accuracy), these visuals are best read as prompts for discovery. They act as launchpads to help you identify trends and test ideas, which you can then explore further using adjacent resources like the Gateway to Research.

What the KDMI focus groups taught us

We trialled the map with a diverse group of cross-sector, international stakeholders. This was the first time we had the chance to engage with such an international and transdisciplinary group of professions within but also beyond the higher education sector. Seeing what mattered to different practitioners and researchers has been invaluable and will directly inform future iterations of the project. We are grateful to representatives from the following organisations for their time and insights:

British Foreign Policy Group, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, International Centre for Protocol and Diplomacy, King’s College London, Knowledge Quarter London, Middlesex University, Ukrainian Catholic University, Universidad Maimónides, Universidade de São Paulo, Université de Genève, University College Dublin, University College London, University of California Santa Barbara, University of East Anglia, University of Guadalajara, University of Leeds, University of Nottingham, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Wilton Park.

The initiative was met with significant enthusiasm and encouragement. We are thrilled by the warm reception and couldn’t have asked for a more attentive, critically-minded, and curious group of individuals. We want to extend our sincerest thanks to everyone who participated, especially those who joined us from across the globe at what were often very early or late hours. Your generous feedback is already shaping the future of the KDMI.

Participants described it as “groundbreaking” and “very interesting.” It was praised for its potential to “help so much to develop the conversation” around Knowledge Diplomacy. The infrastructure relationship graph was particularly of interest and was called “really amazing.” The project was also described as “a fabulous project,” with praise for how “the volume and scope of what’s presented here is really expansive.” But we also unanimously agreed that there is much more to do and that we’ve barely scratched the surface.

Below you will find some further key takeaways that will guide the next phase of the project’s development.

Global South coverage is a must

A crucial piece of feedback, raised by Dr Sophie Haspeslagh (King’s College London) was that the map in its current form is “mainly focused on the Global North.” Participants strongly desired to see the tool expand internationally to be more helpful for their own communities and to reflect the collaborations intrinsic to UK-based infrastructures. Dr Minh-Hà PHAM, the officer for International Development at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, suggested a pilot project of co-mapping with international partners to develop “shared methods” that would aid in the progress of international mappings. This resonates with our goal to address and challenge what Professor Eleonore Kofman (Middlesex University) described as the “unequal knowledge production” that can exist in international research. We agree completely and are actively inviting proposals for co-mapping collaborations that build sustainable methodologies and more inclusive approaches.

Adding an “Education” subset

Professor Marie Clarke (University College Dublin) noted that “the discipline of education wasn’t mentioned specifically as a filter,” despite the “tremendous amount of work in terms of higher education policy and SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals].” We were able to implement this excellent feedback immediately. View 2 now includes an “Education” filter, though we note that our initial mapping exercise did not fully chart this area, given the necessarily tight focus of that first phase. We welcome education-focused infrastructures to add themselves to the map and are very much open to co-mapping initiatives to build out this vital subset.

The value of “least-associated tags”

The visualisations, particularly the “least-associated tags,” sparked conversations about potential growth areas. Participants were intrigued to see “Environmental Science” appear as a less-associated tag with diplomacy. Dr Monja Stahlberger (Knowledge Diplomacy Project Officer) noted how KDP has been active both in the environmental sciences as well as the environmental humanities. She added that the insights offered by the visualisations could serve as a powerful prompt to further cross-pollinate with environmental science communities and push boundaries.

The project has already engaged substantially with environmental issues through its programme: between 2021 and 2022, a seminar series explored challenges exposed by Covid-19 and climate change and higher education’s response to these situations. These connections can be made more visible through continued mapping efforts, reinforcing that knowledge diplomacy is already happening in environmental fields, even when we may not be framing the work explicitly in these terms.

Use it as a policy instrument

Collaborators quickly identified the map’s capabilities as a possible policy tool and that potential stakeholders would be interested in the data and findings. Jodie Eastwood (CEO, London’s Knowledge Quarter) suggested that with year-on-year updates, the map could be a “massively useful policy tool” to “see how geopolitics changes” collaboration and funding patterns. Aisling Conboy (Senior Programme Director at Wilton Park) added that “journalists [would] probably be pretty interested” in tracking these shifts. The value of annualised comparisons for strategy, governance, and transparency was a clear theme, encouraging us to circulate the tool beyond academia to policymakers and other public audiences.

Widen organisation types

Finally, there was a strong appetite to expand the types of organisations represented. Jodie Eastwood highlighted the need to deepen coverage of Independent Research Organisations (IROs) and to “welcome more commercial organisations” to reflect the full mixed-economy of diplomacy work. This would ensure that the map accurately represents the actors in this space, from the GLAM sector (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) to civic and commercial bodies.

This feedback is the fuel that will drive the KDMI forward. For this initiative to be the best version of itself, it requires ongoing collaboration. We need input from across all sectors to understand how the data can be structured, what information is most useful, and what features you would like to see.

Three things you can do today

The tool’s future depends on the curiosity of participants and collaborators. We invite you to explore and follow the connections that spark your interest. Think of these visualisations as starting points for enquiry; they are prompts designed to be tested and verified through your own research. Your experimentation is what will help us develop the resource further, so please do dive in and see what you can find!

1. Find collaborators beyond your circle

Combine a core tag (e.g., policy) with a sector type (e.g., learned society) and skim the Relationship Graph to see who’s already connected. This is a fast route to find partners and to see what kinds of partnerships they already maintain. Is there anything that you notice? Are certain infrastructure types more likely to be connected than others? What does that tell us?

2. Map gaps you care about

Use Least Associated Tags as a hypothesis generator – for example, where diplomacy intersects less frequently – and convert that into a call for case studies or a panel pitch. This is a direct path from a data-driven insight to a new research opportunity. From there, you can test whether the gap is real, validate the need for new funding, explore its policy implications, reveal under-explored connections, and discover what other collaborations might be waiting just below the surface.

3. Survey the funding landscape

Apply your filters, then check Top Funding Sources to see which types of funding are most common for infrastructures like yours. Does this landscape reveal a reliance on international grants, charitable support, or public funding? You can use this high-level view to understand the financial ecosystem of a field and align your strategy with the most prominent sources of support.

Try it, then tell us what’s missing

• Search the Knowledge Diplomacy Mapping Initiative or the Mapping the Arts and Humanities Project’s database, apply a couple of tags, and see whether you are represented.
• Add your infrastructure if it isn’t already there.
• If you are interested in pitching a co-mapping pilot or a case study about your area of expertise or sector, please don’t hesitate to email us at [email protected] and [email protected].

We built KDMI to make diplomacy’s “quiet embassies” visible: the centres, labs, societies, and networks where trust gets made and ideas travel. Now it’s over to you – explore the connections, break the dataset’s assumptions, generate new hypotheses, find what it’s missing, and help us expand its scope.