The opening of this blog is but a further step in our collective CIGI and Community effort to enlarge the BRICSAM Community. BRICSAM is a brand name in the same way that the BRICs has become a brand for Goldman Sachs. What many of us have noticed in the last few months especially is that BRICSAM is beginning to gain some traction.

Over the last year CIGI BRICSAM has begun to develop a number of BRICSAM streams of research and networking. For example, there have been notable efforts to build a China Program by original leader – CIGI Distinguished Fellow and UWO Professor, John Whalley (I anticipate a similiar India effort in the near future led by CIGI Distinguished Fellow, Ramesh Thakur). John has been joined by Professor Gregory Chin, CIGI Senior Fellow and Assistant Professor of York University (as we affectionately refer to him as – Zong yi). Gregory has been at the forefront of the CIGI effort to highlight China in our upcoming annual CIGI meetings – CIGI08 (more on that soon). In addition Greg is planning a workshop on April 26-27th on “China’s New Economic Diplomacy and Global Governance.” There China researchers from North America and Europe are going to tackle a variety of economic issue areas where China has become engaged and is influencing global governance organization as well as rules, norms and principles.

Another vibrant research stream is that led by CIGI Distinguished Fellow and Professor at Waterloo, Andy Cooper. When he Andy isn’t off interviewing celebraties for his work on Celebrity Diplomacy, he along with Tim Shaw, CIGI Senior Fellow and Professor at the University of the West Indies and Agata Antkiewicz, Senior Researcher, CIGI have been nurturing “Reaching Out to BRICSAM: The Heiligendamm Process and Beyond.” Just having completed a very successful meeting at Cancun, Mexico the research authors from Europe, Canada, the United States, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and India are racing forward with a collective effort to explore the possibilities for G8 plus Outreach 5 collaboration and possibly expansion under the Heiligendamm process. Stay tuned for more on that.

So there is much activity from CIGI BRICSAM. And indeed RISING BRICSAM is being initiated by me to report, chronicle and comment on the variety of research and activities that are ongoing at CIGI. But as the CIGI Community Leader – affectionately referred to – by at least me – as the BRICSAM Czar there is much more. The research, information and commentary on BRICSAM or parts of BRICSAM is ever enlarging. Since the BRICSAM Community website is among other things a Community of interest on BRICSAM activity, it seemed like the perfect moment to bring to the Community insights, information and commentary on the actvity, research and analysis on the BRICSAM that is appearing around the globe. So that’s what we hope to do and why we launched RISING BRICSAM. We hope top comment of new research from the academy, think tanks and governments around the world. In addition we plan to add comment on work from more mainstream journals, magazines and from the web. And we hope that not only will you find the blog useful and informative but it will give you a place to comment on the flood of work emerging and to alert me to research and commentary on BRICSAM that you believe the Community would benefit from in the near future.

So to RISING BRICSAM.