CSC 65th Anniversary Impact Showcase Reception

Event programme

Registration from: 4.30pm
Reception times: 5.30pm to 7.30pm 
Speeches: 6.00pm to 6.30pm

Exhibition

The reception will feature poster presentations by current PhD Scholars and displays of our anniversary timeline and impact testimonials.

Publications

Guests will be able to pick up copies of our recent Impact Report and our anniversary issue of Common Knowledge magazine for information on the wider impact of Commonwealth Scholarships.

Professor Robin Mason ORB

Robin is the Chair of the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the UK (CSC) and the Accounting Officer of the CSC.

Robin is Pro-Vice-Chancellor (International) at the University of Birmingham and is responsible for all aspects of the university’s global engagement. He is also the executive lead for LGBT+ equality in the university. He has held senior leadership positions in higher education since 2006 and has been a member of the executive board of two UK Russell Group universities. As Chair, Robin is responsible for ensuring the CSC makes good decisions (consistent with UK Government priorities) and for ensuring the Commission develops and implements an effective strategy. Robin is firmly committed to the mission of the CSC – to provide opportunities for talented and motivated young people who could not otherwise afford them – having himself been educated from the age of 11 thanks entirely to scholarships.

Robin’s academic research concentrates on the incentives faced by economic agents in situations where they have imperfect information about their environment. Formally, his area is game theory with incomplete information and learning. He is a decision-making Member of the Competition Appeal Tribunal and the Financial Conduct Authority. He has acted as advisor to a number of regulators, in both the UK and internationally; to the Prime Minister of Mauritius on competition policy; and to a number of private-sector companies worldwide.

The Rt Hon Anneliese Dodds MP

Anneliese Dodds was appointed Minister for Development at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Minister for Women and Equalities at the Department for Education on 8 July 2024. She was elected as the MP for Oxford East in June 2017.

Anneliese was first elected as the Labour and Co-operative Member of Parliament for Oxford East in 2017. She currently serves as Party Chair and Chair of the National Policy Review. Prior to that, she served as the first woman Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Anneliese represented Oxford from 2014 to 2017 as an MEP. In that role, Anneliese served on the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, focusing especially on clamping down on tax avoidance by big companies. She was also responsible for tightening rules on financial services, to help prevent any repeat of the global financial crisis. Before becoming an MEP, Anneliese worked for many years as an academic. She also chaired a local debt and welfare advice centre.

Anneliese was first elected in June 2017, and was made Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury in July 2017. While in this role Anneliese developed Labour’s ‘Fair Tax Programme’, the Party’s tax avoidance proposals put forward at the 2019 general election.

Dr Terri-Ann Gilbert-Roberts 

Terri-Ann is a 2007 Commonwealth PhD Scholar (University of Sheffield) and 2016 Commonwealth Academic Fellow (University College London) from Jamaica.

Terri-Ann is Research Manager, Social Policy Development in the Secretary-General’s Office of the Commonwealth Secretariat which represents 56 Member States. She uses her research skills to advocate for evidence-based and inclusive development policies, including those that support (youth) citizen participation in governance. 

In 2018, she was appointed by the UN Secretary General to the Global Advisory Group for the Global Progress Study on Youth Peace and Security. She is a Jamaican regionalist and maintains a strong commitment to the development of the Caribbean.

The Rt Hon David Lammy MP

David Lammy was appointed Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs on 5 July 2024. David was first elected as Labour MP for Tottenham at the age of 27 in June 2000.

David studied law at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) Law School and Harvard Law School. He was admitted to the Bar of England and Wales in 1994.

David was appointed the Shadow Foreign Secretary in November 2021. He was previously the Shadow Secretary of State for Justice and the Shadow Lord Chancellor.

David served as a minister in the Labour government from 2001 to 2010 and was made a Privy Councillor in 2008. He was in several departments, including the Department of Health and the Department of Constitutional Affairs. He was Culture Minister at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and Higher Education and Intellectual Property Minister at the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills.

In 2016 to 2017, David led an independent review into treatment and outcomes of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people in the criminal justice system. He is the author of ‘Out of the ashes: Britain after the riots’ on the causes of the London 2011 riots, and ‘Tribes: how our need to belong can make or break society’ (2020).

David is on the Advisory Board for the European Council on Foreign Relations and is President of the British and Foreign School Society. He is also an Associate Tenant Barrister at Doughty Street Chambers and a Professor in Practice at London School of Economics and the School of Oriental and African Studies.