BRICS and the future of South-South cooperation networks / Maxim Khomyakov

Notions of the ‘Global South’ and the ‘Global North’ seem to have substituted the preceding geopolitical concept of an East-West division and the theory of First, Second and Third Worlds. Nevertheless, these notions remain extremely problematic. Why, for example, is Australia part of the Global North, while Russia, the former leader of the Eastern or Second World, drifts towards the Global South despite its polar regions and Arctic ambitions?

Moreover, since the ‘North’ is neatly defined as European and North American societies (including Australia and New Zealand) and the ‘South’ is perceived as comprised of such different worlds as Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa, the question is then whether this paradigm is not just a slightly modified traditional Eurocentric vision of the world.

Yet it is a rather persistent concept: discussions on North-South or South-South relations are more and more widespread. Higher education is no exception. The rise of the Global South as an important study destination and a place for conducting valuable research makes it visible in transforming the academic landscape.

Most university partnerships, however, are still oriented along Global North-Global South lines, meaning that resources (students, finance, etc) are transferred towards the North, while standards and models travel in the opposite direction.

As a consequence, it is no surprise that universities in the so-called Global South are increasingly seeking horizontally organised South-South academic cooperation focused upon the common problems of Southern societies.

South-South cooperation

The majority of South-South cooperation projects are based on geographic regions, like the African Research Universities Alliance, which has founded centres of excellence in 10 priority areas that are crucial for African development.

Another example is an attempt to manage Sino-Russian cooperation in Central Asia through the establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Network University.

Most of these regional consortia, however, have similarities with North-South cooperation models, since one or two regional leaders (as in the case of the SCO Network University) usually hold stronger positions and their primary aim seems to be getting greater access to regional academic markets.

For instance, through participation in numerous regional university associations, Russia seeks, on the one hand, to maintain connections with the former Soviet Union countries (for example, the CIS Network University) and, on the other hand, to handle relations with other regional academic powers such as the Association of Sino-Russian Technical Universities, the SCO Network University and the Russian-Indian Network of Higher Education Institutions.

New type of South-South cooperation

Russia’s academic cooperation with the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) is, however, very different due to the nature of the consortium.

Firstly, the BRICS is not ‘regional’ in the geographic sense of the word. Nevertheless, since the cooperation is focused on shared problems and the overlapping interests of the leading countries of the Global South, BRICS can be considered as an example of a different, more innovative approach to regionalism, where spatial distances matter less in defining regions while shared interests seem to play an increasingly important role.

Second, BRICS is a club of Global South leaders and has potential to expand to other Asian, African and Latin American countries. Currently, it is a grouping of the powerful and, therefore, excludes vertically structured hierarchical relations. In other words, it is impossible to bring the old North-South paradigm of unequal power relations to the BRICS cooperation.

Third, BRICS brings together countries with very different backgrounds and histories. Arguably, these countries are even more distant from each other in their academic landscapes than they are geographically, with only China and Russia sharing a relatively similar academic culture. This makes cooperation more challenging.

Towards horizontal university cooperation

Over the past few years university cooperation between the BRICS countries seems to have expanded rapidly.

Some five years ago Russian participation in the annual conferences of the Brazilian Association for International Education (FAUBAI) or the International Education Association of South Africa (IEASA) was simply unthinkable; today it is a routine that enables professors from these distant countries to meet regularly.

This rapid improvement in cooperation is partly explained by recently established mechanisms that include annual ministerial meetings in education and several horizontal university networks. Academic cooperation in the BRICS region remains fairly novel; cooperation along the South-North principles continues to be much more intensive than the South-South cooperation.

For instance, even the Russian universities that are expected to be actively involved in cooperation with their BRICS counterparts (that is, members of the BRICS Network University) have a very limited number of international students from these countries.

In 2017, for example, 12 Russian universities in the network hosted only 39 students from Brazil, 136 from India and 191 from South Africa. The presence of Chinese students was more conspicuous: 5,120. The number of co-authored publications among any pair of the BRICS countries is even more telling: it never exceeds 3% of the total number of the articles published by a particular country.

However, the recent establishment of two large university networks that aim to address common issues of the BRICS countries is a sign that academic cooperation is moving forward.

The BRICS Network University is an association of 56 universities jointly working on masters and PhD programmes in six main areas: economics, BRICS studies, water resources, ecology and climate changes, energy and computer sciences.

The BRICS University League is another initiative, as yet more loosely organised, which aims to improve cooperation among universities in the BRICS countries. It is still too early to assess these two initiatives, but their very existence seems to indicate a demand for new forms of partnerships that pursue goals not covered by traditional North-South academic cooperation.

A voice for the emerging Global South

The BRICS – at least in principle – is intended to be a grouping of the leaders of the so-called Global South. Arguably, it has more value not as a club of five emerging economies aspiring for a fairer place in the current world order, but rather as a group that provides a voice for the emerging Global South.

This is the idea behind the ‘BRICS-plus’ format developed over the last BRICS summits. In this context, Russia is considered a leader of a much larger Global South area that includes the post-Soviet countries of Central Asia.

In general, BRICS seems to be extremely important for Russia, making the country a member of a grouping of the most dynamically developing countries – even if the moniker ‘Global South’ hinders more than it helps.

Instead of being focused on its past, Russia is learning to look to the future as part of the BRICS. Higher education is no exception to this forward-looking vision.

With the BRICS Network University, BRICS University League and other similar educational forums, Russia can put itself right at the centre of a changing academic world, gaining access to the intellectual resources of the countries that together make up 40% of the world’s population. An ambitious vision like this is certainly worth the effort.

Maxim Khomyakov is deputy director and acting director of the Centre for Research Management and Academic Development. He is also professor of the department of political science, Saint-Petersburg School of Social Sciences and Area Studies, Higher School of Economics Campus in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Email: mhomyakov@hse.ru. This article was first published in the current edition of Higher Education in Russia and Beyond (HERB) and is reproduced with the kind permission of the author and editor of HERB.

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