BRICS Framework Programme for Science, Technology and Innovation: Political and Legal Dimension

The subject of the study is the BRICS Framework Program for Science, Technology and Innovation. The purpose of the study is to reveal the political and legal dimension of the program. In this regard, the specifics of its political and legal foundations were studied, which are the Memorandum on Cooperation in the Sphere of STI of 2015, as well as the provisions of the declarations of the summits of the leaders of the BRICS countries and ministerial meetings, which contain directives. A special political and legal basis is formed by the Agreement on the program, concluded by the national agencies of the BRICS countries that finance the sphere of research and development. The authors dwell in detail on the analysis of the mechanism for managing the implementation of the program in the process of holding project competitions based on agreed priority areas. Much attention was paid to revealing the prospects for the transition to a new stage of the program's functioning associated with flagship projects. The methodological base of the study includes the following methods and approaches: systemic and historical approaches, formal-dogmatic and comparative-legal methods, prognostic method. The main conclusion of the study is the position that due to the absence of international treaty regulation of multilateral ISTC within the BRICS, program regulation is of increased importance. The novelty of the study lies in the systematization of the political and legal foundations of the program. It has been established that due to the implementation of multilateral projects, there are prospects for the transition of the BRICS ISTC to a new qualitative level necessary for a joint response to major challenges. Along with this, the shortcomings of the program are identified. Firstly, this is an excessive level of competition between project applications, which is caused by rather modest funding. Secondly, the two-stage system of the application process within the BRICS is not effective enough. In many respects, this system is caused by the very nature of the BRICS association, which is not an integration association, and therefore program regulation of the ISTC is not based on international treaty instruments. The contribution of the article to the subject area of research is the disclosure of the specifics of the mechanism for regulating the multilateral ISTC within the BRICS.