The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) account for 25% of global biotechnology patents. To understand the current and future landscape of the domain, it is important to better understand the capacity of these contributors. Here, we consider the thematic priorities, strategies, and key players of the BRICS countries in biotechnology patenting.

Involvement in the global innovation system and the level of ICT influence the technologicalstateoftheBrazil,Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) countries and their position in the world economy. Many studies were inspired that examined these economies from various prospective. However, only a few have specially focused on information and communication technologies (ICT), and particularly in services sectors. This paper aims to contribute to the analysis of the evolution of services ICT systems in BRICS. The main hypothesis of the article is that BRICS has made significant progress in economic cooperation, at the same time, the group has not been equally successful in designing and implementing their own agenda in the technology field. The BRICS are not released at a sufficient level of interaction and advocacy in ICT services, which would increase their role in international trade. The authors observe the retrospective of the process of formation of national innovation systems of thecountry participants of BRICS, consider current trends and challenges in the development of national markets for these services in each member country,and highlight future directions for the development. Then they provide an analysis of BRICS countries’ participation in the international ICT services trade. An estimation of revealed comparative advantage indicators allowed determining the dynamics in comparative advantage for ICT service trade in BRICS. Despite the increase in the volumeof export operations in the trade in ICT services, their level of competitiveness is declining. The most vulnerable to the reduction of revealed comparative advantage was India, at the same time Brazil and South Africa showed the least volatile dynamics. It is argued that the policies aimed at promoting investment and enhancing conditions for trade in ICT services contributed significantly to services exports expansion in BRICS. Based on the analysis, a conclusion is made about the current problems and insufficient level of technical cooperation within the group.

Information and communication technology (ICT) has become a major driver of changes in economic, social, public and private life, leading to emergence of the Information Society and Digital Economy. Identification of key trends and analysis of transformation processes can only be made on the basis of reliable statistical data. Development of relevant international statistics play a leading role here hence, via establishing and updating relevant standards, it allows to measure development of the Information Society in a global scale, and benchmark positions of individual countries in the worldwide economic environment. ICT indicators are based on general (definitions and classifications, similar data collection methodologies) and specialised statistical standards, whereas harmonised methodology provides highly compatible indicators for different countries. The objective of this paper is to present a systemic overview of internationally accepted definitions of main ICT indicators based on accumulated methodological standards and practical experience.

This paper investigates how institutional and macroeconomic factors influence the profit efficiency frontier of Russian banks. We demonstrate that the macroeconomic environment is crucial for constructing the profit frontier. The cargo transportation index, exchange rate, and intermediation ratio have a positive relationship with this efficiency frontier while the share of loan loss provision in the loan portfolio is negatively associated with it. In addition, we find that such institutional determinants as a bank’s location, branch network diversity, and ownership type matter for constructing this frontier.