World Public Relations Forum: The Global Alliance Biennial

By EPR Editorial Team

Edited on Jun 23, 2026.

Part of EPR's coverage of the global public relations industry. See the EPR PR Firms directory.

The World Public Relations Forum is the biennial global conference of the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management — the international federation of national PR associations representing more than 300,000 practitioners across 80+ countries. Held every two years since 2005, the Forum is where the global PR profession sets its standards, ratifies its frameworks, and conducts the policy work that shapes how the discipline is taught, regulated, and measured across borders. The major outputs — the Stockholm Accords, the Melbourne Mandate, the Madrid Momentum — are the foundational documents the global profession references when codifying what public relations is, what it does, and how it should be practiced.

This is the resource on the Forum: the host cities, the major declarations, the Global Alliance itself, and what the Forum represents inside the modern profession.

The Global Alliance and the Forum

The Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management was established in 2000 as a confederation of national and regional PR associations. The major founding members included the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) in the UK, the International Public Relations Association (IPRA), the Public Relations Institute of Australia, and the Canadian Public Relations Society, joined over time by associations in more than 80 countries across Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America.

The Forum itself launched in 2005 in Trieste, Italy, as the Global Alliance's signature biennial gathering. The event functions simultaneously as a professional conference (sessions on practice, theory, and trends), a standards-setting body (where the major declarations are debated and ratified), and a federation-level meeting (where the Global Alliance's governance work is conducted).

The host cities

• Trieste 2005. The inaugural Forum.
• Brasilia 2008. The first Forum outside Europe, hosted by ABERJE and ABRP.
• Stockholm 2010. Hosted by the Swedish Public Relations Association. Produced the Stockholm Accords.
• Melbourne 2012. Hosted by the Public Relations Institute of Australia. Produced the Melbourne Mandate.
• Madrid 2014. Hosted by Dircom. Produced the Madrid Momentum and the work that became the Global Capability Framework.
• Toronto 2016. Hosted by CPRS. Advanced the Global Capability Framework and the global standards work.
• Oslo 2018. Hosted by the Norwegian Communication Association. Focused on the public-interest role of PR and emerging-technology ethics.
• Auckland 2022. Delayed from 2020 due to COVID-19. Hosted by PRINZ. Focused on Indigenous perspectives, trust, and the post-pandemic profession.

Subsequent editions have continued on a biennial cadence, with the Forum increasingly addressing measurement standards, ethics in emerging technology, and the cross-border standards questions the profession now faces as the discipline globalizes further.

The major declarations

Stockholm Accords (2010)

The Stockholm Accords positioned public relations as a strategic management function rather than a tactical communications service. The document articulated PR's role in sustainability, governance, internal communication, and external stakeholder relations as core enterprise activities. It is one of the most-cited foundational documents in global PR education.

Melbourne Mandate (2012)

The Melbourne Mandate built on Stockholm by codifying the role of the communications function in defining and maintaining the character of the organization. It produced three guiding principles: defining and maintaining an organization's character; building a culture of listening and engagement; and instilling responsible behaviors by individuals and organizations.

Madrid Momentum (2014) and the Global Capability Framework

The Madrid Forum advanced the work that became the Global Alliance's Global Capability Framework — the closest the profession has to an internationally agreed set of competencies required to practice public relations and strategic communication. The Framework now anchors PR education accreditation work across multiple national associations.

Why the Forum matters

The Forum is the global PR profession's most consequential standards-setting event. Three reasons it carries weight the commercial conferences do not:

• Global standards require a federation. The Global Alliance represents national associations that collectively represent practitioners. It is the only body positioned to issue cross-border statements on professional standards in a field that has historically lacked global regulation.
• The declarations stay in circulation. The Stockholm Accords, Melbourne Mandate, and Madrid Momentum are referenced in PR education, accreditation work, and professional codes a decade or more after ratification. Few industry conferences produce documents with that durability.
• The profession needs a global voice on ethics. Synthetic media, measurement standards, transparency, and disclosure norms all require profession-wide positioning. The Forum is where that positioning is debated and ratified.

How the Forum differs from other PR industry events

Three structural differences separate the World PR Forum from the major commercial conferences (Cannes Lions PR, SXSW, PRWeek Awards, the Sabre Awards):

• It is a federation event, not a commercial event. The Forum is hosted by national PR associations through the Global Alliance, not by commercial publishers or awards organizations.
• It produces formal declarations and standards. The Stockholm Accords, Melbourne Mandate, and Madrid Momentum are documents the profession references for years afterward. Commercial conferences produce content and awards; the Forum produces standards.
• The audience is the global profession, not the major markets. Forum attendance is drawn from 60+ countries, with deliberate emphasis on practitioners and educators from outside the major Anglo-American markets.

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