From April 20 to 21, the 2022 BRICS Network University Annual Conference was held in Beijing both online and offline. The theme of the Annual Conference is Building Partnerships Among Top Universities for Sustainable Development in BRICS. More than 300 representatives from the higher education sector of the BRICS countries and other 13 countries around the world attended the Conference. Mr. Fang Jun, Deputy Director-General of the Department of International Cooperation and Exchanges of the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, Mr. Mahlubi Mabizela, Chief Director of the Department of Higher Education and Training of the Republic of South Africa, and renowned experts from Brazil, Russia and India addressed at the opening ceremony on behalf of the five countries.
The Annual Conference sets up six sub-forums, of which the Energy Sub-forum, themed “Mapping the Link between Energy and Development: Case of BRICS, was co-hosted by the College of Energy and Electrical Engineering and the International Office of Hohai University. Nearly 100 professors from internationally renowned universities, including Brazil's Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and Fluminense Federal University, Russia’s Tomsk Polytechnic University and St Petersburg University, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, North-West University in South Africa, and Hohai University, Sichuan University, and Zhengzhou University, attended the Sub-forum. At the forum, eight top experts at home and abroad shared wonderful academic reports on the sustainable development of energy systems, and reached a preliminary consensus on future educational exchange forms in the field of energy.
Experts from the College of Hydrology and Water Resources and the College of Environment of Hohai University delivered keynote reports at the Water Resources and Pollution Control Sub-forum of the Annual Conference upon invitation.
Established in July 2015, the BRICS Network University focuses on exchanges and cooperation in six priority areas, including energy, computer science and information security, BRICS studies, ecology and climate changes,water resources and pollution control, and economics, covering 55 universities from five member countries. After seven years of development, the BRICS Network University has provided strong support for BRICS in terms of strategic decision-making, top talent cultivation, scientific and technological innovation, and sustainable social-economic development. China holds the rotating presidency of BRICS in 2022.
