HKU Bulletin October 2012 (Vol. 14 No.1)

People was to push China Studies, as he felt that Social Sciences had not engaged in a focused effort to drive it forward. While it has been a focus of HKU for some time – and Professor Burns is quick to point out that some faculties, notably Arts with China West, have made progress – he wants to make a name for the Faculty and HKU in China Studies. “Hence, the first thing I have brought to the deanship is a recognition of this fact in writing – it is now one of our three strategic areas in Faculty development, and we are now re-energising one of HKU’s strategic themes called Contemporary China.” “We have tremendous resources in this area, it’s just that they have not been recognised, and they’re not well organised nor well funded. I want to provide structure, financial support and leadership to this group. We are working with the Arts Faculty and with Angela Leung’s Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, and I hope that the three of us working together can have a huge impact.” The Faculty’s two other strategic priority areas are NGOs and Civil Society and Social and Cognitive Neuroscience. For the former, Social Sciences recently launched ExCEL3, a massive project, backed by a generous grant from the Hong Kong Jockey Club, which seeks to empower the third sector. “ExCEL3 was only launched in June,” says Professor Burns, “but we’ve already built a huge network of groups encompassing philanthropy, charity, institutional investors, social enterprises, NGOs and social venture capitalist groups. It crosses faculties – we’re working on this with Law, Business, Arts and Medicine – and we’re partnering with the Rockefeller Foundation as well as the Jockey Club. It’s a huge, multi-year project, and within the sector it has sparked recognition that HKU is a player.” The third strategic area, Neuroscience, is another speciality in which the Faculty has a great deal of research capacity. “It’s about trying to understand cognition, emotion and is primarily in the area of Psychology, though we work with Medicine too on this,” says Professor Burns. “We have been strong in Neuroscience for a long time, and the Psychology Department brings research expertise and a cosmopolitan outlook. We are cutting edge in this area so it should be pushed.” Inter-disciplinary evolution His aim is to promote all three areas, and further Social Sciences’ reputation in research. “That we are a research university trumps everything,” he says. “These areas are inter- disciplinary – they have evolved that way. Our departments work well together. But then a dean would say that wouldn’t he?” he laughs. Professor Burns also aims to encourage research achievement via incentives such as a Faculty awards scheme, which he plans will begin next year. “We propose four awards – two for lab-based research, one for basic and the other for applied, and two for humanities, again one each for basic and applied.” Asked about the four-year curriculum, Professor Burns welcomes it as a tremendous opportunity. “It encouraged Social Sciences to introduce experiential learning for every student – you can’t get a bachelor degree from this Faculty without, one, doing an internship and, two, leaving Hong Kong for an academic activity. We’re the only Faculty that requires this and we’re proud of it.” “We’re also proud of our contribution to the Common Core, not only in terms of leadership through, for example, Professor Joseph Chan, but also in terms of the number of courses we teach. I strongly support the Common Core – it is a splendid idea well implemented.” M “Medicine saves lives, engineers build bridges... what do social scientists do?” It’s a question that Dean of Social Sciences Professor John Burns is tired of hearing – and one he’s ready to answer. “In the past we’ve tended to wring our hands and say – well, people don’t really understand what we do...“ he says, “but in fact the public, alumni and fellow academics need to know what we’re doing and the impact that it has. At HKU we spend a lot of time analysing our academic impact – which as a research university is of course important – but relatively little looking at our impact on the community.” To this end the Faculty newsletter Socientist is going to contain regular updates on the subject. “We’ll drill home to people what we have been doing through articles and by backward mapping our contract research – which government departments value our contract research, and how it has changed public policy.” Professor Burns came to Hong Kong back in the 1970s, after studying politics at St Olaf’s and then Oxford. He was fascinated by the Cultural Revolution and enrolled on a PhD programme on Chinese politics at Columbia, which sent him to Hong Kong. The touch- base policy – by which Mainland Chinese could stay in Hong Kong if they could get here – was in place at the time and he found himself interviewing new ‘refugees’ from the Mainland at a research centre [the University Service Centre, now at The Chinese University of Hong Kong] – “some good books came out of that.” His first contact with HKU came when he was writing his dissertation and took a part-time teaching assistant job to make ends meet. The pay was a princely $1,600, which failed to make ends even come close. “So in 1979 when I got a lectureship at HKU with a decent wage, it changed my outlook on life,” he laughs. Focus on China Studies He became Dean of Social Sciences last year and retains his position as Chair Professor of Politics and Public Administration. One of his prime reasons for competing for the deanship Making an Impact The Faculty of Social Sciences is ready to stand up and be counted. S T U V U V W X Y Z [ U \ Y ] ^ U V W _ ] [ X ` ] [ X a ] b c W d e f g h i U V W j Z b g f U d ] \ k ] b T Z f k b T W [ b W l f Z g [ b V W m n o e n p q T [ a g [ W r ExCEL3 was only launched in June, but we’ve already built a huge network of groups. It’s a huge, multi-year project, and within the sector it has sparked recognition that HKU is a player. s t u v w x x u t y u z { | } t { x 33 October 2012 The University of Hong Kong Bulletin