On April 9, the first round table of the Working group «Culture, Sports, and Tourism» within the BRICS Civil Forum was held at HSE University's campus in Moscow.

The event was moderated by Andrey Maksimov, Member of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, Director of the Centre for Territorial Changes and Urban Development at the Institute of Applied Economic Research of RANEPA, and Co-Chair of the Working group.

Leading Russian experts in culture, sports, and tourism convened for the event with academic community members to discuss on the group's upcoming agenda and primary focus areas. The roundtable discussions centred around proposals put forward by the Russian side aimed at shaping position papers for the BRICS Civil Forum. These will go through additional international deliberation involving representatives from all member countries.

The participants explored the potential for advancing international cultural and humanitarian cooperation within BRICS and the broader Global South. A lot of focus was placed on developing ecotourism among the BRICS nations and enabling cross-border exchanges of tourists and cultures. The significance of strengthening cross-cultural exchanges in tandem with forward-thinking advances in science, technology, culture, and cybersecurity was underlined by experts. In light of the shifting global dynamics, they also discussed how to increase the international sports presence of Russia and the other BRICS nations. The discussion outlined future conceptual pathways for advancing culture and tourism across the BRICS nations.

In the course of the discussion, participants worked out the structure for communication between members of the Working group and talked about the basic methods for creating Russian submissions for the position papers under the BRICS Civil Track. Follow-up discussions will continue at the national level in both face-to-face and online forms and will subsequently involve representatives from the BRICS countries.