The Review 2017

The University of Hong Kong has had another remarkable year when, despite dodging slings and arrows, it continued to make a positive impact in the world and attract superbly talented students and staff. As the outgoing President, I take great pride in the simple fact that HKU remains an excellent university and some of the best minds in the world are keen to be part of it. The numbers attest to our excellence. In 2017, we attracted more than two-thirds of the top scorers in Hong Kong’s DSE (5** in five or more subjects), not to mention thousands of applications from excellent candidates in Mainland China and overseas. In research, we are leading three new Areas of Excellence and Theme-based Research Scheme projects awarded in 2017 (making HKU the co-ordinator of 25 of the 56 projects awarded to date under these two schemes), and we also received our largest donation ever of $1.244 billion from the Hong Kong Jockey Club to fund new research and clinical facilities at Grantham Hospital. Some 118 of our scientists are ranked among the top one per cent in their fields based on citations of their publications – a remarkable figure when you consider our total professoriate staff is just over 1,100, including a substantial proportion who are not scientists. Internationally, HKU is highly regarded in the league tables. Whilst I always caution that we must not be driven by rankings, I take some encouragement from the fact that our position is rising in all three major tables – the Times Higher, QS and Shanghai Jiaotong – and that we sit comfortably alongside the world’s leading universities. Notably, in 2017 Times Higher ranked us the most international comprehensive university in the world. All of this is wonderful news. At the same time, HKU faces challenges, not least the need to stay competitive. Last year my senior management team and I put forward a strategic vision for meeting that goal, under the title ‘Asia’s Global University’. Our formula is to elevate and enhance internationalisation, interdisciplinarity and innovation on campus, which all converge on creating impact. Any new vision takes time to be realised – a decade is a reasonable timeframe. But already, we have made heartening progress. Implementing Our Vision On internationalisation, we are edging closer to our goal of ensuring every undergraduate student will have opportunities for an international and Mainland China experience by 2022. In 2016–17 alone, more than 9,000 HKU students went abroad for exchanges or other visits. We also have formal collaborations at the institutional level with the University of Sydney, University of Chicago, King’s College London and University College London (UCL), as well as research collaborations on specific issues, such as an agreement with the US National Academy of Science in 2017 to work together on global health issues. In terms of engagement on the Mainland, we have adjusted our human resources policy to make it easier for staff to pursue funding, research and clinical opportunities there. We are also increasing our presence on the Mainland through the HKU-Shenzhen Hospital, the Shanghai Study Centre, the HKU-Zhejiang Institute of Research and Innovation and the HKU-Shenzhen Institute of Research and Innovation. A FINAL NOTE OF OPTIMISM MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT AND VICE-CHANCELLOR 02 | 03