St. Gallen Symposium
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| Formation | February 1970 |
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| Founder | Clemens Ernst Brenninkmeyer, Franz Karl Kriegler, Urs Schneider, Wolfgang Schürer, Terje I. Wölner–Hanssen |
| Type | Non-profit organisation |
| Legal status | Club |
| Headquarters | St. Gallen, Switzerland |
| Location |
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Region served
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Worldwide |
| Website | www.symposium.org |
The St. Gallen Symposium, formerly known as the Internationales Management Symposium and the ISC-Symposium, is an annual conference taking place at the University of St. Gallen in St. Gallen, Switzerland, aimed at fostering intergenerational and intercultural dialogue between the decision makers of today and tomorrow. The symposium’s goal is to contribute to the preservation and further development of a social and liberal economic order.
The St. Gallen Symposium was founded in 1970 as a response to the international student unrests of 1968 and has since then been organised by the International Students’ Committee (ISC), a student initiative at the University of St. Gallen. Currently, this platform for dialogue welcomes more than 1.000 participants every year and is among the largest and most eminent events, completely run by students. Personalities such as Josef Ackermann, Mohammad Khatami, Bob Dudley and Ratan Naval Tata have attended the symposium in recent years.
The St. Gallen Symposium as a platform for dialogue strives to foster constructive debates on current economic, political and social issues. This event gives particular attention to an intergenerational dialogue that is characterised by mutual respect. Therefore, particular focus is given to discussion in smaller, more informal settings, where the Leaders of Tomorrow can debate the leaders of today on equal footing.
The topic of the symposium is selected each year based on relevant issues and events moving the world. In recent years, the topic has developed from being more business-oriented to more holistic themes, as embodied by the topics The Revival of Political and Economic Boundaries (2009), Just Power (2011) and Facing Risk (2012).
Five students of the University of St. Gallen – Clemens Ernst Brenninkmeyer, Franz Karl Kriegler, Urs Schneider, Wolfgang Schürer and Terje I. Wølner-Hanssen – founded the International Students’ Committee (ISC), which has since then organised the St. Gallen Symposium annually. It was established in February 1970 as an alternative to the international student unrests of 1968. The name International Students’ Committee was chosen because of the five different countries the founders originated from, namely Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland. On 30 June and 1 July 1970 the first International Management Dialogue could be held at the University of St. Gallen, with 100 outstanding students and as many business leaders taking part.
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