It was a touching moment at CSCLeaders this year as HRH Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Phillip spoke about the pride he felt at passing on the leadership of CSCLeaders to his daughter, HRH Princess Royal, Princess Anne.

CSCLeaders started life as HRH Duke of Edinburgh's Commonwealth Study Conferences in 1956. Prince Phillip founded the conference for members to look, listen and learn in the hope that the process will help them to improve the quality of their decision-making when they reach the peaks of their occupations.

In 1956, the conference lasted for three weeks. And in those days some participants had to travel for up to six weeks in order to reach the conference.

Under its new name CSCLeaders, the programme was revived in 2013 and is now delivered by Common Purpose, running annually for exceptional senior leaders across the Commonwealth.

Both HRH Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Phillip, and HRH The Princess Royal, Princess Anne, spoke at the reception held for the participants at Buckingham Palace. As well as reflecting on the new generation of Royals taking over, the Duke of Edinburgh was keen to impress on the participants that the 'S' in CSCLeaders stands for 'Study' - and that sometimes it is not enough to simply formulate a solution - good leaders should always continue their educational journey as well.

Princess Anne - who, since the revival, has assumed all responsibility as President of HRH Duke of Edinburgh Commonwealth Study Conferences - attended study tours up and down the country, where participants learned about exciting new technological innovation.

She also attended the final day of the programme in Oxford to hear participants pitch their final ideas on how to address the central CSCLeaders challenge: How do you get societal - as well as economic - benefit from technological innovation?

HRH The Duke of Kent, Patron, HRH Duke of Edinburgh's Commonwealth Study Conferences (UK Fund) also attended a study tour in London as well as the final dinner at Balliol College, Oxford.

The partnership between Common Purpose and HRH Duke of Edinburgh's Commonwealth Study Conferences has so far seen two programmes run with a wide range of leaders from across the Commonwealth taking part, either as speakers or participants. And with preparations for CSCLeaders 2015 already underway, Common Purpose expects it to be as successful as the previous two programmes.

Find out more about CSCLeaders or to see photos from the Buckingham Palace reception, visit our Flickr page