Women in Diplomacy: Mentorship

In March 2026, the LSE IDEAS Women in Diplomacy project published a research report on Strengthening the Representation of Women in Diplomacy: Lessons from the Field (Smith and Kozielska, 2026). The report analyses the findings from research and dialogues that we conducted in 2025 with women diplomats across several global cities: Abu Dhabi, Brussels, Geneva, London, Mexico City, New York and Ottawa. It situates the challenges to women’s representation in diplomacy within their broader institutional and socio-political contexts, identifying practical, actionable, and transferable solutions to the underrepresentation of women in senior diplomatic roles. Through our dialogues, we identified a range of structural, institutional, and cultural barrier, co-creating a practical toolkit, based on proven practices, that address them. Alongside the report, we are producing four additional briefing papers, on mentorship, targets and quotas, handling the media, and work-life balance. While these topics are addressed in the report to some extent, they warrant deeper examination given their prominence in our research, allowing us to provide more evidence and best practices.

About the Author

KAREN E. SMITH is Professor of International Relations at LSE and Director of the Women in Diplomacy project at LSE IDEAS . Her main research interests lie in the fields of foreign policy analysis and the study of international organisations. She has recently published on feminist foreign policy, the role of women in diplomacy and foreign policy-making, the European Union’s diplomacy at the United Nations, and the role of groups in UN multilateralism. She has also written on the formulation and implementation of common EU foreign policies, including the EU’s pursuit of ‘ethical’ foreign policy goals such as promoting human rights and democracy, and policy-making within European states regarding genocide. She has a strong interest in the role that emotions can play in EU foreign policy-making. She is currently investigating the role of women in foreign policy-making and has used Foreign Policy Analysis to try to explain feminist foreign policies.