The Sixth International Conference on Development and Governance in the BRICS
On March 6-8, 2024, The Sixth International Conference on Development and Governance in the BRICS was held in Raipur, India. Ivan Makarov, a Research Assistant at HSE’s International Laboratory of Digital Transformation in Public Administration, remotely participated in it.
These conferences have come to be held quite regularly, and, in the spirit of international cooperation, various organizations from different BRICS countries take on the role of organizers. This year the conference was held at the Indian Institute of Management Raipur. The previous one was hosted by the School of Politics and Governance of the HSE Univesity in October 2022.
The theme of the Sixth International Conference was “Collaboration for Innovation in the BRICS’ Public Sector”. It was attended by both members of the international academic community and by representatives of the public and private sectors of the BRICS countries. The conference program included four panel discussions with representatives of the academic community, one of which was dedicated to the digital transformation of public administration, its positive impact and problems, and directions for further development. In addition, several dozen researchers presented their studies on a range of topics, including innovation in public administration and digitalization of infrastructure, among others. The program also included workshops on research methodology and paper development, as well as a special program for executives and policy makers.
In his report, Ivan Makarov presented a paper on the topic “Innovative technologies of indicative governance: methodology for construction of basic indices of digital development involving secondary aggregation”. The report highlighted the possibilities to make public administration – including governance in the field of digitalization and digital transformation – more effective and objective through the use of quantitative analysis methods based on composite indices. An in-depth methodological study of the previously proposed method for eliminating statistical duplication (correlations between indices, which in some situations can distort the results of the analysis) was described, and its results were presented. Findings regarding the preferability of different aggregation methods in the context of constructing composite indices were showcased, and a theoretical classification of factors that can influence the choice of aggregation method was presented.