Commonwealth Study Conference

The first Commonwealth Study Conference held in the UK in 1956 was, in the words of its founder HRH Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh "an extraordinary experiment". It set out to provide an opportunity for people from all over the Commonwealth and all walks of life to leave behind their usual roles and, with a diverse group of people, examine the relationship between industry and the community around it. The purpose was not to produce high sounding resolutions and weighty conclusions but to challenge the participants' assumptions and prejudices; to give them the chance to examine real situations and the issues arising from the interaction of businesses, their employees and the communities in which they operated. The members were, at Prince Philip's insistence, to be "people who appeared likely to be in the next generations of leaders so that when the time came for them to take important decisions they would have the benefit of what they had discovered on the Study Conference to help them".

Since 1956 ten separate Commonwealth Study Conferences have taken place, variously hosted in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Malaysia and the United Kingdom. A number of related Regional conferences have also been held.