The Innovation Competitiveness of BRICS Countries

BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are an important part of the world’s emerging economies. As developing countries, they play a leading role in the field of science, technology and innovation (STI), and serve as a major engine for STI development and economic growth in the world. With the new industrial revolution, they can generate stronger impetus for global STI and social-economic development. This chapter analyzes the rankings of BRICS countries in 10 secondary and primary indicators out of 100 countries, and introduces the evaluation results of BRICS countries in five STI reports. Our research shows that during the 2011–2020 period, BRICS countries have embarked on diverging trajectories in terms of innovation competitiveness, with China and South Africa scoring and ranking higher, Russia and Brazil scoring lower but ranking higher, and India scoring and ranking lower. The BRICS STI cooperation mechanism is an important cooperation initiative established under the framework of the BRICS leaders’ meeting. With a mature cooperation structure led by the ministerial meetings and supported by the senior officials’ meetings, thematic working groups and the young scientist’s forum, the mechanism has produced fruitful results in platform building, innovation policy exchange, joint research projects and young scientist exchanges.

The chapter addresses the scale and the effectiveness of international research cooperation of BRICS countries through analysis of key statistics of their publication activities. The special focus is made on the identification of areas of intra-BRICS research collaboration, which have the largest potential for further development. For this purpose, an approach has been proposed that allows for assessing relative intensity of international research collaboration for various thematic areas and identifying the most promising among them in terms of their relative importance. The analysis involves the use of the following three indices: Revealed comparative advantages (RCA), Relative intensity of intra-BRICS collaboration (RIIC) and BRICS partners importance growth (BPIG). Based on the analysis carried out, we identify thematic areas where scientific cooperation between BRICS countries can be strengthened.

BRICS Partnership on New Industrial Revolution Innovation Center (hereinafter referred to as “BRICS Innovation Center”) is an important platform for building BRICS Partnership on New Industrial Revolution, deepening practical cooperation among BRICS countries, and expanding the “BRICS+” network. The BRICS Innovation Center is now based in Xiamen of Fujian Province, and a series of activities such as professional training, think tank seminars and industrial innovation competitions have been held. Although the construction of the BRICS Innovation Center has made important progress, it is still confronted with certain obstacles. It is claimed that we should keep in line with the vision of the BRICS Partnership on New Industrial Revolution and BRICS countries’ needs for science, technology and innovation (STI) development and industrial upgrading, focus on the two paths of STI and industrial development, take “multilateralization” as the basic principle, uphold openness, inclusiveness, and win–win cooperation, enhance systematic collaboration, build the future ecosystem of technology industry, establish featured innovation hubs of the Maritime Silk Road, explore the establishment of the BRICS institute of industrial technology, international standardization organizations and the BRICS technology bank, fully mobilize both government and private organizations, and promote high-quality development of the BRICS Innovation Center through diversified investment, mechanism innovation, intellectual property protection and other means.

Based on the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Development Index of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), this chapter proposes a new version of ICT/Digital Development Index. Since 2007, great improvement has been achieved in the development of information technology and digital economy in BRICS countries, four of which have approached the intermediate level in this regard among the G20 countries. Among the BRICS countries, Russia has the highest ICT access index, while China, India and South Africa also have significant improvement in this field; China’s ICT application index has nearly quadrupled, and others have also improved much in ICT application field. As for ICT skills, more than 90% of citizens in Russia, China and South Africa are equipped to use or communicate on the Internet, and more than 85% of Brazil also have achieved this. In BRICS, Russia has always been at the forefront in the ICT development, followed by China, South Africa and Brazil, while India still has a certain gap with the other four countries. Compared with 2007, the average ICT/Digital Development Index (IDI) value of the BRICS countries considerably narrowed the gap with G20 average level in 2020, mainly attributed to the booming Internet roll-out and penetration. According to the analysis, the evolution of IDI index shows strong correlation with the number of related SCI and non-SCI papers in WOS (excluding 2020), and the number of patents in Brazil, Russia and India also has the correlation with their IDI index value (excluding 2020). However, there is weak correlation with IDI and average GDP values in Brazil, Russia, and South Africa.

This chapter discusses the evolution of Federal Expenditure on Research and Development in Brazil in the last 10 years. A comparison between the two different National Strategies for Science, Technology and Innovation that were in force in the period of analysis is presented considering these expenditure and the main guidelines. The main points to be highlighted are related to the loss of importance of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, which can be seen even in budgetary terms, and the fundamental role of society in restoring the budget for science, technology and innovation from 2022.

Sustainability implies that something continues for a period of time. It also indicates the ability to keep alive. In order to be sustainable, something should be able to continue causing little or no damage for a long time. The debate around sustainable development has arisen from the necessity of finding new mechanisms of continuing growing without compromising future generations not only to meet their own needs but also to continue existing. This work is an attempt to contribute to the development of a new set of indicators that seeks to examine how and whether manufacturing firms are aligning their productive activities towards a more sustainable way. By presenting a pilot survey carried out by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics with cooperation and support of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), it discusses the main features and challenges of designing adequate instruments for measuring sustainable production in order to support a more accurate assessment of human’s capacity to sustain acceptable living standards over time in continuing interaction with other living systems in a dynamic process of co-evolution.

Development plans in several countries are increasingly incorporating environmental challenges and viewing them as a priority. The global trend bets on a development project based on the premises of sustainability. It is paramount to adopt public policies, which focus on environmental innovations or eco-innovations, in addition to considering the specificities of each country. This chapter highlights the Brazilian case, due to the countless potentialities in its biodiversity and environmental characteristics. The bioeconomy presents itself as a valuable opportunity for the country’s development by strengthening the RD&I efforts to ensure the growth of the economy with sustainability and offers significant opportunities for innovation and establishing sustainable jobs. Brazil’s strong scientific capacity and advantages in areas associated with biodiversity and innovations provide a crucial and urgent window of opportunity. The country carries enormous advantage with gigantic market potential when combining environmental conservation and development. To follow this path, it is essential that governmental initiatives promote activities valuing biodiversity, which present environmental and ecological balance and generate occupation and income, as well as encourage competitiveness between companies that operate sustainably. Brazil has created institutions aimed at environmental protection; nevertheless, those institutions were under attack and the setbacks have been delivered fast and intensely in the president Bolsonaro’s mandate. The country needs fight against the dismantling of institutions historically created to protect the environment. Given this immense bioeconomic potential, it is paramount that Brazil establishes a “green” innovation policy based on the principles of sustainability and strengths the innovation systems in the direction of the global sustainability trend thus taking full advantage of the potentialities it already has.

The article discusses a common feature of some of the BRICS and other economies: the role of their public banks as agents of governments in financing long-term development. It focuses on the performance of the Brazilian development bank—BNDES—in the period from 2006 to 2020. It discusses the retraction process and the changes in the capacity to face crises and to invest in priority themes, as in the period 2006–2015. And it also examines the responses to the main restrictions placed on the bank’s operations in the period 2016–2020, including the reaction to the health crisis and its consequences. The conclusions sum up policy recommendations, highlighting the opportunity to support production and innovation systems capable of anchoring social, territorial and economic development; and mainly those based on the Brazilian socio-biodiversity and on essential public services.

This article discusses the Covid-19 health crisis that began in Brazil in 2020—which has accelerated and deepened other chronic problems—and briefly addresses the situation and responses experienced in the country since then. It focuses on the main changes and learnings arising from the pandemic from the perspective of the BRICS and the Global South; highlights the relevance of the territorial dimension of health and well-being, both for analytical and policy purposes; examines the main challenges posed by the multiple crises at the global level and to Brazil; and addresses some of the main impacts and responses to these crises. The final session aligns proposals for the future and summarises the article’s central objective of discussing the urgency of placing the support of sustainability of life and the public services as the main driving axes of a new Brazilian development project.

Despite the growing importance of science, technology and innovation (STI) in socio-economic progress, various external challenges are increasingly affecting STI in many countries. Russia, just starting to emerge from the socio-economic recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, at the beginning of 2022 faced even stronger external threats related to the introduction of powerful political and economic sanctions against it. This required a significant adjustment of state policy in relation to various sectors of the economy, including STI. This chapter discusses the trends in Russia’s STI development, as well as the processes of transformation of the national STI policy agenda aimed at overcoming new challenges.

India is a major innovation country in the South Asian subcontinent, and its economy has grown rapidly in recent years. With the commitment and support of the government, India’s science, technology and innovation (STI) capabilities have continued to improve, and its ranking in the Global Innovation Index has climbed from the 81st place in 2015 to the 40th place in 2022. India’s R&D output has continued to grow. The average annual growth rate of scientific research papers in the past 10 years is 8.24%, which is much higher than the global average of 4.1%; the number of patent grants has increased significantly. In 2021, the number of patent grants accounted for 49.66% of all patent filings. India has a world-leading scientific and technological edge in information technology, biomedicine, aerospace, energy and fields. India has already started to participate in the top-level design of global governance and play a unique role in some important global institutions. With the increasing emphasis of the Indian government on STI and the implementation of various supporting measures, as well as the further stabilization of STI cooperation mechanisms between India and countries, India still has great potential for further development in STI.

According to Global Innovation Index (GII), China’s global ranking of STI competitiveness jumped from 34th in 2012 to 12th in 2021. Over the past three years, China has accelerated implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy with increased investment in R&D, reform of the science and technology management system, and improvement of innovation ecosystem, and has made a number of landmark achievements. STI have provided strong underpinning for economic development, social progress, improvement of people’s livelihood and national security, and made an important contribution to the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects. Going forward, China will continue to actively integrate into the global innovation network, carry out multi-faceted cooperation with BRICS countries, and contribute its strength of science and technology to the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.

South Africa has much in common with Eastern Europe and Russia in that the reforms of the early 1990s opened markets to those previously excluded. These adjustments in the context of geopolitics, globalization, financial instability and climate change create special problems for country innovation systems. This contribution unpacks the forces in play and provides an overview of the state of South Africa’s modest-sized innovation system that supports her as ‘The Gateway to Africa’ and partner among the BRICS. Resource path dependence remains, endogenous factors include labour militancy, unstable power supply and low private sector confidence. STI policy has brought some coherence to the complexity by promoting big science and basic research. STI indicators are tabulated and system strengths are identified. Innovation actors have risen to the challenge through a number of open innovation projects that include organised labour and that are designed to address efficiency and effectiveness. The private sector, as in the past, is able to marshal forces where survival dictates.

In recent years, the South African government has advanced poverty reduction, employment and social equity, and promoted inclusive growth and sustainable economic and social development by enhancing science, technology and innovation (STI) capabilities and developing the digital economy and bio-economy. It attaches great importance to the formulation of STI strategies and implementation of S&T plans, and has achieved significant progress in STI areas including astronomy, paleoanthropology, aerospace, biomedicine and advanced manufacturing. At the same time, the South African government highly values the expansion of international cooperation and attracting of S&T talent from around the world. In particular, it maintains close cooperation with China and other BRICS countries, and has carried out a host of science and technology cooperation projects with high visibility.

This chapter provides a detailed assessment of creative industries in the BRICS countries by comparing each country’s share in the world creative sector to the country’s share in the world GDP. The method applied is rooted in the superstar economy: creative industries were assessed with the indicators that confirm the presence of their most successful representatives—“creative superstars”—in the BRICS countries. The research uses data on individuals and enterprises related to filmmaking, electronic games, music, fashion, advertising and PR, architecture, education in the field of culture and arts, industrial design, and literature. The revealed superstars allow for the first-time-ever identification of the BRICS countries’ creative profiles and the assessment of each country’s comparative advantages in terms of creative industries. The quantitative analysis is supplemented by the descriptive study of the creative sector development background and current creative policies in the BRICS countries. The research outcomes add not only to a better comprehension of the creative landscape within BRICS but also to tailoring support measures for creative industries in each of the bloc’s country.