The Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan (CSFP) is an international programme under which Commonwealth governments offer scholarships and fellowships to citizens of other Commonwealth countries.
The plan was originally proposed by Canadian statesman Sidney Earle Smith in a speech in Montreal on 1 September 1958 [1] and was established in 1959, at the first Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (CCEM) held in Oxford, Great Britain. Since then, over 25,000 individuals have held awards, hosted by over twenty countries. [2] The CSFP is one of the primary mechanisms of pan-Commonwealth exchange.
There is no central body which manages the CSFP. Instead, participation is based on a series of bi-lateral arrangements between home and host countries. The participation of each country is organised by a national nominating agency, which is responsible for advertising awards applicable to their own country and making nominations to host countries.
In the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which is the biggest contributor to the Plan, this process is managed by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in Britain, a non-departmental public body, and funded by the Department for International Development. Since 2008, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office no longer contributes financially to the plan [3] and the number and type of scholarships available for students from more developed Commonwealth countries (Australia, The Bahamas, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Cyprus, Malta, New Zealand, and Singapore) to study in Britain has been reduced.. Other countries, such as Australia, no longer offer scholarships as part of the CSFP. [4]
New reforms were developed to strategically align scholarships with mutual interests for business and innovation between Commonwealth nations. During the state visit of President Tony Tan to the UK in October 2014, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II announced that the Royal Commonwealth Society of Singapore would be re-established to promote the Commonwealth and to provide new Commonwealth Scholarships and Fellowships in Innovation for Singaporeans. [5] The first Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship for Innovation were presented in August 2017 to Joshua Cheong and Dr Khoo Hsien Hui by the Rt. Hon. Sajid Javid. [6]
The Colombo Plan is a regional intergovernmental organization that began operations on 1 July 1951. The organization was conceived at an international conference, The Commonwealth Conference on Foreign Affairs held in Colombo, Ceylon in January 1950, and was attended by the finance ministers of Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, Ceylon, Pakistan and New Zealand, and the prime ministers of Ceylon and India. Membership has expanded significantly over the years to the current 28 governments.
The Harkness Fellowship is a program run by the Commonwealth Fund of New York City. This fellowship was established to reciprocate the Rhodes Scholarships and enable Fellows from several countries to spend time studying in the United States.
Harriet Brooks was the first Canadian female nuclear physicist. She is most famous for her research in radioactivity. She discovered atomic recoil, and transmutation of elements in radioactive decay. Ernest Rutherford, who guided her graduate work, regarded her as comparable to Marie Curie in the calibre of her aptitude. She was among the first persons to discover radon and to try to determine its atomic mass.
Edinburgh Law School, founded in 1707, is a school within the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom dedicated to research and teaching in law. It is located in the historic Old College, the original site of the University. Two of the twelve currently sitting Supreme Court of the United Kingdom justices are graduates of Edinburgh, including the current President and Deputy President.
The Chevening Scholarship is an international scholarship, funded by the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and partner organizations, that enables foreign students to study at universities in the United Kingdom.
The English-Speaking Union (ESU) is an international educational membership organisation headquartered in London, England. Founded by the journalist Sir Evelyn Wrench in 1918, it aims to bring together and empower people of different languages and cultures, by building skills and confidence in communication, such that individuals realise their potential. With 35 branches in the United Kingdom and over 50 international ESUs in countries around the world, the ESU carries out a variety of activities such as debating, public speaking and student exchange programmes, runs conferences and seminars, and offers scholarships, to encourage the effective use of the English language around the globe.
Keith Anderson Hope Murray, Baron Murray of Newhaven, KCB was a British academic and rector of Lincoln College, Oxford.
The University of London Worldwide is the central academic body that manages external study programmes within the federal University of London. All courses are branded as simply "University of London", having previously been "University of London International Programmes" and earlier "University of London External Programmes". It claims to be the world's oldest distance and flexible learning body, established under the University of London's royal charter of 1858, although academics have disputed whether it offered distance learning at that time.
Andrew J. Petter is a former academic and provincial politician in British Columbia, Canada. He represented the electoral district of Saanich South in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia from 1991 to 2001. A member of the British Columbia New Democratic Party caucus, he served in various cabinet posts under premiers Mike Harcourt, Glen Clark, Dan Miller and Ujjal Dosanjh, including as Attorney General of British Columbia from February to November 2000.
Singapore–United Kingdom relations, also referred to as British–Singaporean relations, refers to the bilateral relations between the Republic of Singapore and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Both countries are full members of the Commonwealth of Nations and are marked by historical, cultural, institutional and language ties, extensive people-to-people links, aligned security interests, sporting tournaments, and significant trade and investment co-operation.
Kennedy Scholarships provide full funding for up to ten British post-graduate students to study at either Harvard University or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Susan Hockfield, the sixteenth president of MIT, described the scholarship program as a way to "offer exceptional students unique opportunities to broaden their intellectual and personal horizons, in ways that are more important than ever in an era defined by global interaction.". In 2007, 163 applications were received, of which 10 were ultimately selected, for an acceptance rate of 6.1%.
Samarajeewa "Sam" Karunaratne, FIET, FIEE, FIESL is an emeritus professor of engineering and a leading Sri Lankan academic who is the founding chancellor and president of the Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology and the former vice-chancellor of the University of Moratuwa. He has held a number of other appointments in the field of higher education in Sri Lanka, including senior professor of electrical engineering and dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, president of the Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka. Karunaratne is a pioneer in the development of the use of computers in the field of engineering and played an important role in the development of information technology education and industry in Sri Lanka.
Isobel 'Ishbel' Grace MacNaughton Campbell was a British chemist researcher and lecturer who held one of the first Commonwealth Fellowships awarded to a woman.
Anisuzzaman is a Bangladeshi philosopher and university administrator. He was the first vice-chancellor of Global University Bangladesh, serving from 2019 to 2024. Most of his career was spent at Dhaka University as a professor of philosophy.