From October 20th to 21st 2022, the 5th International Symposium on Development and Governance in the BRICS was successfully held online. This symposium was hosted by Russian National Research University – Higher School of Economics (HSE University), with a theme of "Administrative Reforms in the BRICS and Central and Eastern Europe: Improving Governance and Government Performance". More than 30 experts and scholars from Russia, China, India, Brazil, South Africa and other countries and regions attended the symposium.

At the opening ceremony, Prof. Lev Jakobson, Vice President of HSE and Prof. Andrey Melvil, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, first delivered welcoming speeches, expressing their heartfelt thanks to all the participants, and briefly reviewing the background of International Symposium on Development and Governance in the BRICS.

Later, Professor Yijia Jing, Dean of the Institute for Global Public Policy of Fudan University, delivered a speech on behalf of the Scientific Committee. First of all, he thanked the organizers for their efforts in organizing this conference. He pointed out that the BRICS symposium demonstrated to us three trends. First, the BRICS system is a vastly different and a dynamic system. Nonetheless, the relatively similar conditions in development stages and other aspects make theoretical explorations and ventures under the BRICS flag worthwhile. Second, the common pursuits and interests of BRICS scholars create meaningfulness and sustainability for this community. Third, the BRICS symposium has played a leading role in the communication of governance ideas and practices across the five countries.

After that, the symposium entered the plenary session. Professor Yijia Jing chaired the plenary session and delivered a keynote speech entitled "Public Administration Reform in China". Professor J.Nemec from Masaryk University and Matej Bel University gave a speech entitled "Reforming Public Administration and Public Administration Performance in EU Member States from the CEE Region", and Professor J.A.P. de Oliveira from FGV University gave a speech entitled "Public Administration Reform in Brazil". Professors A.Barabashev and A.Klimenko from HSE University gave a speech entitled "Administrative and Civil Service Reform in Russia: Present Trends", Professor A.Basu from Indian Center For Environmental Management & Participatory Development gave a speech entitled "Recent Public Administration Reforms in India and their Impact", and finally, Professor C.Tapscott from University of the Western Cape gave a speech entitled "Public Administration Reform in South Africa".

After the plenary session, the symposium entered the topical sessions. In one and a half days, participants discussed the topics of "Public administration and international project management", "Managing crisis, security and risks in public administration", "Assessing the results of the public administration reforms", etc. They introduced their latest research results and had an in-depth discussion and interaction. The two-day symposium was successfully concluded.

International Symposium on Development and Governance in the BRICS was held at Fudan University in Shanghai for the first time in 2016 and has been successfully held for five times. Experts and scholars from many countries and regions in the world actively participated in the symposium, held discussions on issues related to BRICS development and governance, and made efforts to crafting alternative models of development model based on the BRICS’experiences.