Coddiwompling Toward Europe’s Economic Security: A Week Inside the Policy Mission Fellowship’s London Diagnostic Residency Week

Over five intensive days, hosted at the London School of Economics, and with seminars at some of Europe’s most influential policy institutions, the fellows began their exploration of the 2026 policy mission, the Securitisation of Europe’s Economic Power. Though they were guided along the way by expert insights and proven methodologies for political collaboration, they faced the challenge of working together as the first cohort taking part of this new programme, built to develop new policy solutions and modes of political collaboration to address the changing nature of Europe’s Economic Security.

Read ahead to see how fellows developed a deep understanding of and engagement with the 2026 policy mission, and how we paved the way for them to coddiwomple their way toward effective future policy solutions.

Day 1  ·  Monday

Diagnosis and Problem Exploration

“Europe has the capability, but lacks the connective tissue” – an acute summary of the state of play in European policymaking today, Day 1 of the Diagnostic Residency Week aimed to set the stage for fellows to deeply understand the challenges that Europe faces – as individual nations, and as a continent.

So, how does one kick-off a week of intensive learning and collaboration with the goal of building Europe’s connective tissue? First, fellows needed to understand their own national-level challenges and priorities as a group of politicians entering this space.

Beginning the week at LSE, each fellow framed their own national-level policy priority by pitching their individual policy challenge to the group. An LSE Masterclass then kicked off the programme’s intellectual frame – Security versus Economy: Geoeconomics and the Limits of Europe’s Liberal Peace  – led by Prof. Dr James Morrison, in dialogue with Prof. Dr Abby Innes and Prof. Dr Adnan Qadir Khan, where fellows were asked to sit with today’s tension between economic openness and strategic security.

Day 2  ·  Tuesday

Expert Insights & the Long View

Day 2 challenged fellows to consider the long view of European politics – something that politicians rarely engage with on a day-to-day basis. From institutional visits to weak signals of problems and opportunities on the horizon, we asked: what are political leaders not yet paying attention to?

Fellows began the day scattered across London’s policy landscape. Morning visits to the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, the European External Action Service, Chatham House, the Cabinet Office’s Department for Business & Trade, and the European Council on Foreign Relations placed the week’s intellectual work in direct conversation with the local institutions actively shaping European policy.

In the afternoon, fellows engaged in a concentrated set of expert deep-dives, where they heard from experts including Mariana Mazzucato (UCL), Dr. Peter Hefele (Martens Center), Daniel Gros (Bocconi University), Martin Hullin (Bertelsmann Stiftung), Catherine Mulligan (Crossroads), and Goran Buldioski (The Hertie School), António Valentim (London School of Economics), Eleanor Hevey (Centre for Long-Term Resilience), Sam Alvis (Centre for Public Policy Research (IPPR), Katharina Klotz (Greenmantle), Katja Bego (Chatham House) and Chris Aylett (Chatham House).  

These experts engaged directly with fellows’ most pressing questions, and mapped the terrain from digital sovereignty and technological competition to geoeconomics, social cohesion, and economic resilience. 

The evening closed with dedicated time for reflection as an intentional counterpoint to the pace of political life. Fellows were asked to look beyond the immediate, reactive nature of policymaking, asking: Which weak signals already emerging around the securitisation of Europe’s economic power might define the next decade? What are political leaders not yet paying enough attention to?

Day 3  ·  Wednesday 

From Diagnosis to Ideation 

After two intensive days of working to understand the underpinnings of the challenges facing Europe’s Economic Security, Day 3 shifted gears, laying the groundwork to move toward solutions.

The morning opened with an immersive trade simulation led by Prof. Dr James Morrison: how many bottles of ale would you trade for a case of wine? This fierce negotiation asked fellows to test their skills of negotiation and collaboration in real time – when to hold firm, when to concede, and how to build coalitions under pressure. 

The afternoon’s workshop drew on Economist Mariana Mazzucato’s framework on mission-oriented innovation, where fellows broke into small groups to begin identifying the highest-opportunity areas for policy intervention on Europe’s economic security, from challenging Russian defence capacities to protecting young people online. 

The central question guiding this work: How might we best intervene? 

By the end of the day, fellows had formed Policy Prototyping teams based on interest – some cross-country and cross-party, and others united by shared national context – to develop the policy ideas they will take into the Berlin Policy Lab in May. 

Some of the policy prototyping teams that emerged included: 

• Establishing a clean, secure and affordable European energy market 

• Establishing a Resilient European Disaster Management System by 2035 

• Prioritising European social cohesion in a world characterised by geopolitical instability 

• Building a self-sufficient, interoperable EU defence system that reduces European reliance on outside actors 

Day 4 & 5 ·  Thursday/Friday 

Adaptive Leadership 

The final two days of the Fellowship stepped back from the problem-solution matrix that policymakers constantly work within, and asked fellows to instead examine the behaviours, assumptions, and mental models that shape their leadership styles, and what might be holding them back.

We turned to a model of Adaptive Leadership – a Harvard-developed training methodology that aims to shift from traditional “command-and-control” forms of leadership, toward empowering leaders to adapt to challenges through experimentation, learning, and resilience. 

Facilitated by Adaptive Leadership expert Kevin Parker, Ph.D., fellows were asked to reflect on the difficult questions that shape their leadership, both as individuals and as a group with shared experiences: What is the difference between authority and leadership? What happens when party discipline pulls against long-term conviction? 

Working through a peer consulting process, fellows mapped their own Immunity to Change – the hidden commitments that keep leaders anchored in the status quo. On the final day, fellows linked these Adaptive Leadership frameworks to their own 2026 Policy Mission, mapping the factions, relationships, and potential losses that pursuing this policy challenge might generate. Rather than treating those factions as adversaries, fellows were asked to see them as new perspectives worth engaging with. 

The week closed with honest reflection on the costs and risks of exercising leadership in today’s political climate – despite political orientation or affiliation – and ending with an interesting post-exercise observation from Kevin Parker: “you all agree on way more than you may think.” 

–

In a political world that rarely rewards leaders for reflecting and taking time to think, these five days spent in London undoubtedly challenged fellows to delve deeply into the issue of the Securitisation of Europe’s Economic Power, and to begin to ideate expert-informed policy solutions with new tools and partnerships.  

We are excited to reconvene the cohort in Berlin in May, where the Policy Prototyping teams that formed in London will begin to build out their policy ideas. 

Interested in keeping up with this inaugural cohort’s work? Become a part of our network here!