On June 8^th, 2021, the BRICS Network University Economics Group 2021 Working Meeting was held. Representatives from Russia's Higher School of Economics University, South Africa's University of Cape Town, Brazil's University of Campinas, India's New Delhi State Islamic University and other member universities attended the meeting. As the coordinating unit of the Chinese university in the Economics Group, Xu Minbo, Associate Director of the Department of Economics, attended the meeting.The meeting was chaired by Professor Sushant Ghosh of the National Islamic University in New Delhi, India.

The meeting focused on two topics: first, international exchanges and cooperation between students and teachers under the epidemic; second, the expansion of new projects of BRICS Network University. Xu Minbo introduced the measures taken by our school to promote online international exchange and cooperation between teachers and students under the epidemic, such as holding online special lectures, organizing students to participate in online short-term projects, etc. At the same time, he also pointed out the limitations of online international work at present. After discussion and exchanges, the meeting put forward preliminary ideas on "building an online platform for teacher-student exchange" and "choosing a major as a pilot of joint degree program". The specific plan will be gradually improved by entrusting some member universities after the meeting.

Since the establishment of the BRICS University Alliance at BNU in 2015 and the BRICS Network University at the Ural Federal University in 2016, we has played an active role as the Chinese coordinating unit of the economic forum and economics section of the two organizations. We have not only attended the annual meetings and working group meetings, but also received many visits from famous universities such as Russia and Brazil. Moreover, we cooperated with the WTO International Trade and Sustainable Development Center to hold the "Expert Exchange Meeting on Sustainable Development of BRICS Trade and Investment Cooperation" in Beijing, and invited well-known scholars from BRICS universities to give lectures, etc., which achieved extensive influence. Under the BRICS cooperation mechanism, many of our teachers have been invited to BRICS universities to offer short-term courses, lectures or summer camps, and our students have been sent to Brazil for one-year exchange study at the University of Sao Paulo. In addition, in recent years, the number of applicants for WEC's international master's program from universities in BRICS countries has increased significantly, and the number of students from Russia, Brazil and other countries studying in WEC is stable every year.

Provided by International Office