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As part of the policy research project on data diplo-
macy, conducted by DiploFoundation (Diplo) and
commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Aairs of
Finland, this event brought together the diplomatic
and policy-making communities from Finland and
other Nordic countries to discuss the potential of big
data for diplomacy and foreign policy.
The event was opened by Ms Sini Paukkunen, head
of policy planning and research at the Ministry
of Foreign Aairs of Finland. In her address, she
stressed that diplomacy ‘has always adapted to
changing circumstances, including technological
changes, and will continue to do so’. At the same
time, the average diplomat ‘is most likely better
with narratives than with numbers’. Yet, this should
not mean that new methods in data analysis should
be ignored. She furthermore emphasised that
investments in new technologies such as big data
should not be ‘purely based on wishful thinking and
over-driven hype’, which is why it is important to
exchange experiences and share information.
After Paukkunen’s introductory remarks, the audi-
ence’s perception and concerns regarding big data
were gathered using interactive presentation soft-
ware. Unsurprisingly, those assembled in Helsinki
judged the potential of big data to be either important
or very important for diplomacy. Further, a majority
associated big data with the potential of predicting
crisis. Last but not least, some of the main concerns
related to data were privacy, security, and trans-
parency. Audience members were also concerned
about finding meaningful results in a haystack of
data, creating knowledge, dealing with inaccuracies,
and the drive towards quantification.
The participants’ input was followed by an intro-
duction to data diplomacy by Dr Katharina Höne,
research associate in diplomacy and global
Image 1: The importance of big data for diplomacy according to the event’s participants
Data diplomacy:
Big data for foreign policy
Summary of a half-day event at the Ministry of Foreign Aairs of Finland
Helsinki, 9 October 2017
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governance and lecturer at Diplo, and Ms Barbara
Rosen Jacobson, programme manager at Diplo.
They introduced the main concepts, opportunities,
and challenges that they have been able to distil
from their research. They also added recommen-
dations for eective data diplomacy based on their
summary report of the Data Diplomacy Roundtable,
which was held in April 2017.
Moving further into the practice of data diplomacy,
Mr Graham Nelson, head of the Open Source Unit
of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Oce (FCO),
provided examples of his unit’s work in analysing
open data to improve foreign policy. This includes
observing social media to measure the impact of
public diplomacy eorts, analysing geospatial data
to corroborate reports, and looking at Google Trends
to identify developments in Daesh-related search
terms in dierent countries. Besides identifying pat-
terns and trends, he also argued that the big data
analysis carried out by his unit is able to corroborate
as well as challenge previously held assumptions.
From his presentation, it was clear that big data
analysis can and does complement traditional data
and qualitative reporting.
The Open Source Unit has existed for a year and
consists of a small team of diplomats and data sci-
entists, who have been given space to innovate on
open data. Nelson emphasised that the data analy-
ses need to comply with the ‘proportionality test’:
data collection and analysis need to be necessary,
proportionate, accounted for, and be conducted with
oversight.
Looking at the Finnish perspective and bridging
the gap between statistics and big data, Mr Timo
Koskimäki, deputy director-general of Statistics
Production at Statistics Finland, spoke about Finland
Statistics’ engagement with big data. He explained
that big data might be able to improve the oce’s
analyses, yet the oce is bound by quality criteria
that the data needs to comply with. In addition, there
are challenges to overcome regarding access to big
data, which is often generated by platform econo-
mies and controlled by the private sector. Finland
Statistics is now attempting to start collaborating
with these dataholders, yet, this proves to be a chal-
lenge due to a lack of clarity and regulation about
how these agreements should be framed.
Höne provided a zoomed-out view of data diplomacy,
looking at the ways in which it might aect knowl-
edge creation in diplomacy. She argued that the big
data trend might yield a new type of knowledge:
those engaging in big data analysis are dealing with
a completely dierent scale of input as the basis for
knowledge; this allows for inaccuracies because of
Image 2: The most relevant use of big data for diplomacy according to the event’s participants
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size; this means that a move from causation to cor-
relation as the basis of understanding takes place;
and that the new kind of knowledge creation rests
on the identification of trends and patterns. She
argued that there are also clear limits to the use of
big data, at the very least, potential for misrepre-
sentation and limited predictive powers need to be
taken into account. She concluded by relating big
data’s potential contribution to substantiating known
knowns and uncovering known unknowns as well
as unknown unknowns. Nelson added that big data
can also identify ‘unknown knowns’, referring to the
things that we do not know that we know, especially
in relation to the vast amounts of data already held
within foreign ministries.
Finally, Mr Rafael Prince, second secretary at the
Embassy of Brazil in Helsinki, described his experi-
ence as a diplomat who is also a PhD candidate in the
area of big data analysis. He highlighted his work on
large-scale text analysis to better understand multi-
stakeholder negotiations in the case of the Internet
Governance Forum (IGF). He also described the very
dierent mind-sets that he encounters in his role as
a diplomat and his role as a researcher, hinting at
the potential need for furthering understanding and
cross-fertilisation.
The discussions that took place throughout the day
addressed some of the key questions around data
diplomacy. Those who are sceptical towards the role
of big data in diplomacy often point at data quality
as a predominant concern. Nelson challenged this
idea, as he explained that the alternative – obtain-
ing data from more traditional avenues – can lead to
even less accurate results. Rosen Jacobson pointed
out that while this may be true, perceptions around
big data are often misleadingly optimistic, and data
Image 3: The most pressing concerns related to the use of big data for diplomacy according to the event’s participants
For more information, go to
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quality concerns should be taken into account to
paint a more realistic picture of what big data can
and cannot do.
In sum, this event highlighted that big data has
great potential for diplomacy and foreign policy. A
key insight is that the best way forward lies in the
creation of small units within ministries of foreign
aairs that are allowed to innovate with a degree of
freedom. At the very least, such units will be able to
challenge existing knowledge and open a dialogue
about the scope and kind of data needed for better
foreign policy decisions. Big data can also lead to
a better understanding of emerging trends, by ana-
lysing past documents, and improved knowledge of
the present, by identifying real-time developments,
which better enables the foreign service to for-
mulate an accurate and targeted response. With a
better understanding of past patterns and current
trends, we might be able to stipulate scenarios of
the future. Yet, we need to be realistic about the
value of such predictions. Even if predictions were
the most desired attribute of big data for foreign
policy among the participants, the future will always
carry a large degree of uncertainty which big data
can only address to a certain extent.
Please cite as DiploFoundation (2017) Data diplomacy: Big data for foreign policy. Summary of a half-day event at
the Ministry of Foreign Aairs of Finland.
Available at https://www.diplomacy.edu/resources/general/data-diplomacy-big-data
DiploFoundation
7bis Avenue de la Paix
1202 Geneva, Switzerland
Publication date: October 2017
If you have any questions or comments, please fee free to contact the programme organisers:
Barbara Rosen Jacobson and Katharina E Höne at data@diplomacy.edu
