From July 5 to 7, 2018, the third annual meeting of the BRICS Network University was held at University of Stellenbosch in Cape Town, South Africa. As the rotating presidency of the BRICS cooperation mechanism in 2018, South Africa regarded the third annual meeting of the Network University as one of the most important activities in the BRICS education field. Vice President Zhou Zuoyu of BNU attended the annual meeting on behalf of BNU and gave a keynote speech. Xiao Kai, Director of the Management Center of Confucius Institute, Cai Wen, Deputy Director of the Graduate School Training Department, and Cai Hongbo, assistant to the Dean of BNUBS accompanied the delegation. Naledi Pandor, Minister of Higher Education of South African attended the annual meeting and delivered a speech. During the meeting, he met and talked with the delegation of BNUBS. About 200 guests from the BRICS countries participated in the conference, including more than 30 Chinese representatives from the Ministry of Education of China, the Education Office of Chinese Embassy in South Africa and over 10 universities such as Zhejiang University, BNU and Hunan University.

Prior to this annual meeting, BNUBS, as the economics ITG of BRICS Network University’s coordination in China, was invited to send representatives for the closed-ended Workshop “Strengthening Economic Research Collaboration” sponsored by the University of Cape Town. Professor Michael Kyobe, Vice President of the University of Cape Town, attended the workshop and delivered a speech. Professor Lawrence Edwards, Dean of the School of Economics, presided over the conference. Cai Hongbo, assistant to the Dean of BNUBS made a presentation and paper report of the Research Profiles of BNUBS, which was well received by the participating experts. Signing the Memorandum on the Cooperation of Stellenbosch, the ITB of the BRICS Network University emphasizes to further strengthen cooperation, plans and arranges specific issues such as joint publication of international journals and holding of the BRICS summer school.