PROSPECTS FOR BRICS SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COOPERATION IN THE CONTEXT OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Today in the changing global geopolitical context we can record the increasing role of the growing impact of scientific and technological progress on international economic relations. Geopolitical tensions, objectively determined by structural shifts accompanying the ongoing change of technological modes, are a catalyst for the search for new scenarios focused on scientific and technological cooperation between countries. New institutional structures, such as the BRICS group of countries, play an important role in today's global economy. In recent years, cooperation with the BRICS countries has increasingly become a priority in a variety of areas, especially in science, technology and innovation. Effective use of scientific and technological potential by the countries is a fundamental factor of their stable economic development, improvement of competitiveness in the world global market, formation and development of national innovation systems. Emerging international science and technology relations (ISRT) are becoming a new systemic structure of international economic relations of the BRICS countries. In this regard, the issues of digital transformation of the countries are becoming increasingly important. In this paradigm, the experience of developing countries and regional associations, such as BRICS, is of interest, and has not been sufficiently studied so far. The BRICS digital transformation scenario as an imperative to transition to Industry 4.0 entails not only technological and economic changes, but also institutional ones. This factor may be a strength of BRICS, because since 2011, all the adopted documents in the field of digital transformation of the member countries of the interstate association are characterized by a high level of implementation.