BRICS Academic Forum

Concept note

The Academic Forum is a major platform for interaction between experts representing academic communities from BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). The Forum aims to encourage academic exchange, strengthen the dialogue between government and academia, as well as provide policy advice. As the outcome of the Forum, expert society puts forward proposals to BRICS Leaders on cooperation in the fields of trade and finance, health, education, urban development and infrastructure, energy, digitalization, peace, and stability. 

The BRICS expert track was launched before the association itself was established. While the first leaders’ meeting occurred in the city of Yekaterinburg (Russia) in 2009, the first ever meeting of BRIC scholars happened in Moscow in December 2008. This gave a start to the annual Academic Forum conducted by the chair country on the threshold of the Leaders’ Summit. 

Since the establishment of the Forum, the BRICS expert community played the role of pioneers calling attention to newly emerging problems and drawing attention of the leaders to persistent issues of international agenda. The vast majority of proposed initiatives were endorsed at the top level and helped to turn the association into an institute of global governance with a significant impact. By the third Leaders’ Summit, when South Africa had joined the grouping and BRICS was established, the expert track was formally institutionalized by setting up a network of research centers of the five countries. In 2013, within South African BRICS Chairmanship, the heads of the national coordinating centers signed a declaration on the BRICS Think Tank Council (BTTC), which was subsequently endorsed by the leaders at the Durban Summit.

12th Academic Forum, to be held within the Russia’s BRICS Chairmanship in 2020, is covering topics within the three pillars of priorities announces by the Russian host and offering a new vision to further development of the grouping. One of the other important tasks of the BRICS academic community remains that on monitoring the progress achieved by the five countries on the issues of common concern and looking into ways to enhance pentalateral cooperation of BRICS members at all levels. Thus, as a result of expert track of the Russia’s Chairmanship a number of important documents are prepared. Among those are the Assessment of the Strategy for BRICS Economic Partnership 2015-2020, Databank of the Best Practices on the Development of Remote Areas in BRICS Countries, BRICS Women Empowerment Toolkit to name but a few.

The Russian BRICS Chairmanship in 2020 with the theme of “Partnership for Global Stability, Common Security and Innovation Growth” features the aim of ensuring sustainable and fair world in the interest of all the countries of the Planet. The Russian National Committee on BRICS Research will host the 12th BRICS Academic Forum and the BRICS Think Tank Council (BTTC) meeting in Moscow, Russia on October 22-24 under the theme “BRICS New Vision for a Better World”. The BRICS Academic community will provide policy proposals for strengthening the cooperation within the grouping and increasing its further role in the global governance system. As a result a set of recommendations for the five leaders is expected to emerge.

The Forum will continue serving as a platform for debating solutions on the pressing global governance issues, generating proposals for strengthening the BRICS cooperation and its role in global governance by our countries’ scholars, further strengthening ties between the BRICS academic communities. It is expected that about 200 participants from the BRICS and the “outreach” countries will participate in the Forum’s deliberations.

Program

Geopolitical tensions and the pressures of rising protectionism exacerbate existing risks to sustainable development and inclusive economic growth: high level of public and private debts, persistent current accounts imbalances, and volatility of financial flows. That is in addition to mounting anthropogenic strain on the ecosystem, increasing competition on energy and technological markets, economic inequality, and the digital divide. 
The international community continues facing challenges to sustaining peace and security. These challenges encompass intense rivalries between global and regional powers, terrorist threats, interference into the domestic affairs of states, including military intervention, the militarization of outer space, and other threats. Global governance institutions do not cope with the challenges, and the multilateralism in international relations is unprecedentedly challenged. 

The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic turned on the “test mode” for the global governance institutions to respond to crises. Despite the commitment of the international community to tackle the novel coronavirus, the global governance system experienced multiple challenges in meeting the needs of COVID-19 reality. The healthcare crisis increased political turbulence, caused a new wave of protectionist measures, and undermined efforts to build a more resilient and sustainable world. 

The BRICS came together a decade ago to build a strong, sustainable, balanced, inclusive, and more equitable global governance system. Over the years the grouping has been deepening intra-BRICS cooperation and engaging with other global players to shape a more democratic multilateral order. However, the efforts of BRICS to make globalization work for all are likely to be tested by the pressures of isolationism and increasing imbalances between globally integrating markets and still fragmented policymaking. New geopolitical and economic realities require BRICS to recommit to their founding mission and enhance the “strategic partnership for the benefit of our people through the promotion of peace, a fairer international order, sustainable development, and inclusive growth”.

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