Message from the President and Vice-Chancellor Teaching and Learning Research and Innovation Knowledge Exchange and Technology Transfer The University Profile An Extract from the University’s Annual Accounts 2018–19 Officers of the University The Court 02 06 16 26 36 45 48 49 Contents Vision Mission The University of Hong Kong, Asia’s Global University, delivers impact through internationalisation, innovation and interdisciplinarity. It attracts and nurtures global scholars through excellence in research, teaching and learning, and knowledge exchange. It makes a positive social contribution through global presence, regional significance and engagement with the rest of China. • To advance constantly the bounds of scholarship, building upon its proud traditions and strengths • To provide a comprehensive education, benchmarked against the highest international standards, designed to develop fully the intellectual and personal strengths of its students, while extending lifelong learning opportunities for the community • To produce graduates of distinction committed to academic / professional excellence, critical intellectual inquiry and lifelong learning, who are communicative and innovative, ethically and culturally aware, and capable of tackling the unfamiliar with confidence • To develop a collegial, flexible, pluralistic and supportive intellectual environment that inspires and attracts, retains and nurtures scholars, students and staff of the highest calibre in a culture that fosters creativity, learning and freedom of thought, enquiry and expression • To provide a safe, healthy and sustainable workplace to support and advance teaching, learning and research at the University • To engage in innovative, high-impact and leading-edge research within and across disciplines • To be fully accountable for the effective management of public and private resources bestowed upon the institution and act in partnership with the community over the generation, dissemination and application of knowledge • To serve as a focal point of intellectual and academic endeavour in Hong Kong, China and Asia and act as a gateway and forum for scholarship with the rest of the world The University of Hong Kong will endeavour:
Message from the President and Vice-Chancellor Research Opportunities The headline development of the year was the legislative approval of the government’s InnoHK scheme, which provides up to $500 million to each research project in the fields of medicine and engineering. This is well beyond any previous funding provision by the government. HKU submitted very strong proposals and we are confident that several of these will be approved. At the same time, we continued to perform strongly in other governmentfunded schemes, including the General Research Fund which granted us $163 million for 217 projects in 2019, the most of any Hong Kong institution. We were also the first to benefit from new rules that allow Hong Kong scholars to apply directly to the National Key R&D Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology for funds that will be used for research conducted in Hong Kong, when Professor William Lu Weijia from the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine received a RMB27.44 million grant. While these results are very satisfying, the University can and must do even better to ensure we carry our momentum forward and capitalise on the new opportunities before us. Recruiting the best scholars from around the world remains a top priority and we added fuel to that effort in 2018–19 with the launch of the Presidential PhD Scholarships and Post-doctoral Fellowships, which will provide substantial funds to support young scholars and their research in addition to that provided by the Hong Kong government. We plan to recruit up to 100 scholars in each category over three years. We also invited young scholars to visit Hong Kong in October, for the Meeting of Minds@HKU Forum, to present their research and check us out. And we will soon launch a very ambitious programme to recruit 50 leading senior scholars from around the world – the cream of the crop. Enriching our talent pool will ensure we have solid foundations for future success. Another priority is to focus our energies in our areas of strength, where we can have the most impact addressing the grand challenges of our times. This year, we launched InnoTech, through which we will establish 10 interdisciplinary research institutes over the next five or six years. We have already received a $150 million donation from the Lee Shau Kee Foundation for the Institute of the Mind, which will bring together scholars from medicine, engineering and social science to investigate the workings of the brain to benefit both people and computer chip development. To support the InnoTech institutes and our other research, we plan to build the Tech Landmark, which will contain a cluster of four buildings on the Main Campus. Funding has already been secured for two of the buildings and construction will start very soon. ‘Out-of-the-box’ Learning and Innovation Our teaching and learning programmes also continued to go from strength to strength in 2018–19. HKU continues to attract top students from Hong Kong, the Mainland and abroad because of the very rich learning experience we offer, including guaranteed overseas and Mainland learning experiences for students who wish to pursue this, innovative forms of teaching and learning, opportunities to learn beyond their major, support for student entrepreneurs and more. The quality of our teaching was recognised in 2019 when the Common Core team was awarded the UGC [University Grants Committee] Teaching Award. The Common Core was launched in 2012 and attracted global acclaim for its innovative, interdisciplinary approach to learning. The experience we gained from this has given us the confidence to launch a full programme in September 2019 based around interdisciplinarity and leadership development – the Bachelor of Arts and Sciences. Graduates of this programme will have skills in critical thinking, leadership and big data analysis, which will enable them to tackle the challenge of our times. On innovation and entrepreneurship, the University has been supporting students, as well as staff and alumni, through iDendron, which provides space, networking and training 0 2 0 3 Cultivating Our Potential I have completed my first full year as President of HKU against a backdrop of challenging times for Hong Kong as a whole. Yet despite these events, the University has kept its focus on our academic mission and had a fruitful and productive year. HKU (and Hong Kong institutions as a whole) welcomed large, new and unprecedented injections into research funding by the Hong Kong government, as well as improved access to funding from Mainland China. We launched innovative undergraduate programmes built around interdisciplinarity and leadership development. We also boosted our support for incubating start-ups and spin-offs by HKU students and staff. Our academic output remained strong and we continued to attract top students. There is much to look forward to as the University works to capitalise on these opportunities and move towards reaching its great potential. The Review 2019
Valued Partnerships A key factor in the University’s ability to develop new knowledge, recruit the best scholars and teachers, and have impact in society is our partnerships and relationships. At any given opportunities. iDendron was launched in 2017 and has so far been a launch pad for more than 50 start-ups and spinoffs. The University is keen to bolster our impact further and encourage the translation of our research, ideas and enthusiasm into new products and services. In July 2019 we launched the iDendron Incubation Programme to provide intensive mentoring and training for budding young entrepreneurs. We have also created a new post of Chief Innovation Officer to develop a strategic plan for advancing innovation at HKU and supporting the development of our research outputs into real-world applications. Having said all that, I believe it is also important to bear in mind that scholarship is at the heart of HKU’s activities, whether that be teaching and learning or research. Innovations and applications are natural extensions of our scholarship, but our utmost priority is to promote the creation and acquisition of knowledge. determined to mitigate our impact and contribute to the future of the planet. Closer to home, the University also values its position as a major pillar of Hong Kong society. The social movement of recent months has put Hong Kong, including HKU, to the test. Student safety is a high priority and we have been doing all we can to provide students with support and assistance. The University has also been working hard to promote civilised and rational discussion and debate in adherence with our core values of academic freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and respect for others’ cultures and perspectives. Our commitment to these values is unerring and they will continue to be at the heart of all we do. The past year has been a time of great progress for both the University and for me. I have met regularly with all the Deans, student groups and other stakeholders to get the pulse of HKU and I have now started to visit individual departments to deepen my understanding of activities and aspirations across the campus. One thing that rings loud and clear is that HKU has a great pool of talent, energy and ambition. My task ahead will be to work very hard, in collaboration with the University community, to steer HKU towards new heights of excellence and fully realise its potential. Professor Xiang Zhang President and Vice-Chancellor December 2019 moment, our scholars are engaged in hundreds of research collaborations with partners from around the world. Our InnoHK proposals include partnerships with Harvard, Cambridge, MIT and other outstanding institutions. The Greater Bay Area is 04 0 5 also offering many opportunities for Hong Kong scholars to launch new research and innovation activities. In teaching, we have dual degrees with institutions such as University College London, Sciences Po and the University of California, Berkeley, and in 2018–19 we announced new dual degrees with Tsinghua University and Peking University. Such partnerships require resources. While the Hong Kong and Mainland China governments have been generous, there are many competitors for these funds. Moreover, we also want to grow, with plans over the next five years to build the Tech Landmark and five new hostels for student accommodation. I have been active over the past year meeting with industry partners and other interested parties. HKU’s alumni have been generous and we are fortunate to have so many enthusiastic friends and supporters from the community. I will continue to seek external support beyond the government to help HKU secure much-needed support for our research and teaching ambitions. Moving Forward One final thing to note is that while our scholars and students are working towards a better future, the University itself must ensure its inhouse operations are aligned with that goal. This year’s Review reports on our ongoing efforts towards achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. This will be a long-term project and progress may not be immediate, but we are The Tech Landmark, a complex of four towers planned for 2024, will house 10 institutes serving as national platforms with global impact. Professor Zhang welcoming new students to HKU. Professor Zhang delivering a keynote speech at the Meeting of Minds@HKU Forum. Message from the President and Vice-Chancellor The Review 2019 A memorandum of understanding was signed between the University of Hong Kong and Lee Shau Kee Foundation.
In July 2019, 15 students from the Faculty of Science adopted the role of eco-leaders and teamed up with 17 HKU alumni and HKU Foundation members in the HKU East Africa Wildlife Eco-Tour led by Dr Billy Hau from the School of Biological Sciences to experience the legendary Great Migration and promote nature conservation. CROSSING BOUNDARIES New interdisciplinary degrees launched in 2018–19, in addition to our existing requirement that all students learn beyond their major, are enabling HKU to produce graduates with the critical thinking skills and adaptability to address the challenges of the 21st century. 06 0 7 Teaching and Learning The Review 2019
HKU is a leader in Hong Kong in embracing interdisciplinary education. Our innovative Common Core, which attracted widespread interest from around the world when it was launched in 2012, has given us deep experience in bringing together students from different disciplines to address the complexities of 21st-century life from multiple perspectives. In 2019 we ramped up that approach with the launch of the Bachelor of Arts and Sciences (BASc), a rigorous curriculum that crosses intellectual boundaries and cultivates leadership abilities. More than 100 top-performing students were admitted to the BASc programmes in September 2019, which include a general BASc and five BAScs in Financial Technology, Applied Artificial Intelligence (AppliedAI), Design+, Global Health and Development, and Social Data Science. Students acquire both broad and specialised knowledge – for example, in the BASc(AppliedAI) they learn the fundamental science and engineering skills for building AI systems, as well as the philosophical and ethical questions that AI evokes – and undergo training in leadership and big data and attend a Foundations of Human Knowledge Dentistry students in the University‘s Horizons Project Mingde went to Guangxi to provide dental examinations and oral hygiene education to villagers. 08 09 Teaching and Learning 11 HKU candidates achieved 5** in six or more subjects in the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination (HKDSE). 11 top scorers Students went to Mainland China and all five continents to undertake learning activities of all durations and academic levels. For the 13th consecutive year, graduates achieved full employment (including the pursuit of further studies). The figure is for UGCfunded students who graduated in 2017–18. 64 local non-Chinese speaking students were admitted through JUPAS, the most of all the universities, as well as 11 students with special educational needs. 8,000+ 99.3% 75 global and Mainland China experiences employment students with special backgrounds course that looks at intellectual development across human history, from ancient China and ancient Greece up to the present day. The Common Core itself, meanwhile, continued to gain recognition and evolve in 2019, when it received the UGC [University Grants Committee] Teaching Award (Team) for teaching excellence. Only three teaching awards are bestowed across Hong Kong each year, so this was a great honour. The Common Core also expanded beyond our campus, with the launch of the China Liberal Arts Summer Sessions (CLASS) with partner institutions in the Mainland and of Responsive4U, a UGC-funded $15 million programme to share General Education and Common Core courses among HKU, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (see page 14). In addition, the Common Core team has taken the lead to bring together researchintensive universities from around the world that are committed to enhancing holistic liberal arts education through the formation of the Global Liberal Arts Design Experiments (GLADE), which held its inaugural symposium at HKU in June 2019. The team is now initiating collaborations on sharing modules, courses and projects through the co-creation of a Global Civic University that will focus on relationships between universities and their host urban localities. Apart from encouraging students to cross disciplinary boundaries, the University also wants them to cross physical ones. Our Horizons programme provides every student with the opportunity to have a learning experience in Mainland China and overseas if they so wish. To support that goal, the highly successful Project Mingde–which originated in the Faculty of Engineering in 2003 and has built schools, dormitories, toilets and bridges in impoverished communities in Mainland China and Vietnam–has now become the University-wide programme Horizons Project Mingde. Individual units of the University have also taken the initiative to launch their own external programmes with partners, such as the Sau Po Centre on Ageing which offered a summer programme on ageing with Peking University for both undergraduate and postgraduate students. The inaugural Global Liberal Arts Design Experiments (GLADE) symposium was held at HKU in June 2019. Internationalisation is also shaping many of our programmes. The University has dual degrees with some of the world’s top universities, which allow undergraduate students to study at and be conferred degrees by both institutions. In 2018–19, we announced a new dual degree in Law and Business with Peking University, which admitted its first students in September 2019, and two new dual degrees with Tsinghua University in Business and Economics and Computer Science and Technology, which will be available soon. These are in addition to our existing dual degrees with such institutions as University College London, Sciences Po and the University of California, Berkeley. HKU’s commitment to both excellence and opportunity is enabling the University to attract high-performing students from around the world. In 2019, our student intake again registered the highest average HKDSE [Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination] admission scores of all universities across the four core subjects of Chinese, English, Liberal Studies and Mathematics, as well as in combined scores. We also admitted the very best students – including top scorers from Hong Kong, the Mainland and overseas. We received more than 15,000 applications in total from applicants outside Hong Kong. These results are a welcome sign that the education offered at HKU is widely regarded as relevant and fit-for-purpose in preparing students to develop professional and personal capabilities and tackle the exciting and difficult challenges facing modern society. The Review 2019
Architecture as Object and Place Field trips to historic and culturally noteworthy sites in Mainland China are deepening Architecture students’ appreciation of both the architectural qualities of the structures they visit and the societies from which they emerged. In spring 2019, one group of students went to mountainous Jiyuan in Henan to study classical temple architecture, while another visited a rural area in Zhejiang to study vernacular dwellings, including a traditional family courtyard house. Owen Miu Ho-yeung, a third-year student of Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies, travelled to Zhejiang to investigate traditional domestic architecture. “I initially thought we would see very rigid and conservative forms of architectural expression, but I came to realise that traditional Chinese buildings can be as flexible and adaptive as modern 1 0 1 1 Teaching and Learning buildings,” he said. The family courtyard particularly impressed him. “We had to survey the complex and it gave me a thorough picture of what is meant by the term ‘Chinese architecture’. This field trip made me understand the beauty behind this sophisticated architecture and its cultural implications,” he said. Classmate Johanna Li Yin went to Henan and produced surveys, maps and drawings of the temple and surrounding area. “We had the rare opportunity to go inside the altar of the temple, where usually only Taoists are allowed to enter to do rituals. We witnessed their everyday rituals and daily life. We also were able to talk to local people and get a better understanding of their living conditions,” she said. An Enriching Year Starting from 2018–19, all third-year MBBS students embark on an ‘Enrichment Year’ in which they take charge of their learning by studying a non-medical Architecture students went to Henan to study classical temple architecture. Professor Wang Weijen from the Faculty of Architecture giving a lecture to HKU students in a village in Zhejiang. First-hand Experience Experiential learning continues to be an integral part of education at HKU, with opportunities to engage in discipline-based and service learning in Hong Kong, Mainland China and overseas. Evelyn Chan Hui-yi (second from right in the first row) went to Yale University as a visiting student. A mini mobile microscopic laboratory on board which enables students to examine the live organisms in their samples. (Courtesy of Professor Brian Helmuth of Northeastern University) subject, pursuing research, earning an extra degree, and / or undertaking service work. The first cohort returned refreshed and recharged, as the following examples illustrate. Chan Wang-yeung went to impoverished Yongping county in Yunnan province to study the healthcare system and make recommendations to county officials. “This reminded me that public health is not only a matter of health but also involves multiple stakeholders and complex resource allocation,” he said. He also interviewed women there about perinatal depression. “The most impactful moment was when an interviewee told me about the failure of her first pregnancy. It made me realise that doctoring is not just about curing physical diseases but also helping heal patients’ mental wounds.” Evelyn Chan Hui-yi went to Yale University as a visiting student where she studied anthropology, gender studies, global affairs and computer science, and volunteered with a healthcare outreach programme for the homeless and the student-run Yale Living History Project. “We listened to patients tell their life stories and wrote their narratives into their medical records. This helped us learn more about them as human beings instead of just patients,” she said. Caitlin Yeung Hon-ning had a busy year studying a full-time Master of Public Health programme at HKU; accompanying former Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) and Director of Health in Hong Kong, Dr Margaret Chan, to a conference in Bangkok; working as a part-time research assistant in the Department of Family Medicine and Primary Care on a project about the challenges faced by low-income families; and doing monthly home visits to chronically-ill elderly patients. “My varied experiences truly broadened my view on health in my community and beyond. I hope one day to combine my public health research skills with moral integrity to improve health in my community,” she said. Four Countries in Four Weeks Science students visited coastal areas in four countries over the summer to deepen their awareness of climate change and understand the interactions between different agents in tropical, sub-tropical and temperate coastal systems. The experiential learning course, organised by Dr Thiyagarajan Vengatesen and Professor Gray Williams of the Swire Institute of Marine Sciences and the School of Biological Sciences, required students to spend a week in Hong Kong studying coastal ecology and sustainability, then a week in Penang to study tropical coastal ecology with the Centre for Marine and Coastal Studies of the Universiti Sains Malaysia. The students then spent more than two weeks in the Gulf of Maine, visiting coastal communities in the US and Canada in a programme organised with Northeastern University. The students worked in groups focusing on one of four topics – food security, biodiversity and ecosystem services, coastal zone uses, or stakeholder engagement – and produced a report at the end comparing their observations from Asia and North America on that topic. Trista Zhang Zheng, a third-year BSc student who was in the stakeholder engagement group, said the experience enabled her to see how biodiversity, policy, economics, landscape and other factors interacted. “I learned to stay humble as a decision-maker because we will never know enough about a system and we will never know better than the participants in this system. It is a simple thing to say we should engage with different stakeholders, but in reality the complexity is beyond expectation,” she said. The Review 2019
1 2 1 3 Teaching and Learning (From left) Emad Akhras, Gitanjali Pies and Kelvin Cheung from the new Bachelor of Arts and Sciences (BASc) programme. Creative Approaches Experimentation has taken hold among HKU’s educators, with the launch of innovative new majors, teaching techniques and initiatives to help local and non-local students integrate on campus. Virtual reality (VR) tools are used for nursing education to help students understand the patient’s perspective. The Eat To-Gather programme pairs a local and two non-local students, who enjoy a meal with a local family. BASc in the Limelight HKU’s new Bachelor of Arts and Sciences (BASc) programme found ready takers among students attracted to its interdisciplinary education, training in leadership, big data and critical thinking, and its focus on the key developments of our times. Emad Akhras, who is originally from Syria and lived and studied in the UK, is enrolled in the BASc in Applied Artificial Intelligence programme. “The interdisciplinary aspect is truly fascinating. I had been thinking it would be extremely dull to pursue either an abstract science course or a purely humanities-oriented course and I could not find the right balance until I saw the BASc. It offers me rich scientific content related to what I am interested in doing in the future, as well as a powerful foundation in literary and background theories,” he said. Gitanjali Pies is enrolled in the generalist BASc. “What stood out for me is the flexibility it offers to study a wide range of subjects and ‘personalise’ my major. I also like that I am allowed to double major in another field of interest, such as economics or psychology. That way I can study deeper into one area once I find that passion,” she said. Kelvin Cheung was motivated to enrol in the BASc in Global Health and Development programme by the broad perspectives taken on a subject of deep interest to him. “Global health is a complex phenomenon that cannot be viewed from a solely scientific and medical perspective. It requires an awareness of how economics, law, politics and human rights are intrinsically linked to health,” he said. Standing in Another’s Shoes, Virtually What does it feel like to have a psychotic episode? The symptoms may be gleaned from a textbook, but written words cannot replicate the auditory and visual hallucinations and delusional thoughts that these patients undergo. Recognising the limitation this presents to caregivers, the School of Nursing has worked with HKU’s Technology-Enriched Learning Initiative (TELI) to develop virtual reality (VR) tools that let students see and hear the world from the perspective of patients. Dr Janet Wong Yuen-ha, who oversaw the project, said: “VR education can integrate cognition, emotion and sensation into the learning process, which is very useful for nursing education, so we have applied it to depict the journeys of psychiatric patients suffering from psychosis, anxiety disorder and mood disorder.” Fifth-year BNurs student Christy Chan Hei-yin felt both students and patients benefit from this form of learning. “After using VR, we can really experience how a patient feels – it is hard to differentiate hallucinations from reality. If we have more empathy towards patients and put ourselves in their shoes, and try to think from their perspective, patients will see that we, as nurses, really care about them and would like to help them. This will benefit the treatment process,” she said. Table Talk Internationalisation on campus can be tricky. Putting people together in the same place does not guarantee they will interact. The Centre of Development and Resources for Students (CEDARS) therefore has been developing programmes to help local and non-local students bridge the cultural gap. The newest is CHATnCHILL, in which local students lead non-local students on short excursions to Hong Kong sites and culture. Leo Dai Chun-kit, a fourth-year BEcon&Fin student, has led visits to the Peak and the Tai Kwun arts and heritage centre. “A large part of our work is making conversation because we want to create a relaxing environment where international students have a chance to talk with local students and each other. I have met a lot of people from different countries and I have learned that relationship-building depends on letting other people understand you, even if you are not speaking in your mother tongue,” he said. The Eat To-Gather programme, which started three years ago, pairs a local and two non-local students, who enjoy a meal with a local family to experience ordinary Hong Kong life. The local student helps the other students understand local etiquette and customs. Ivan Ng Chak-ming, a second-year student of Bachelor of Science in Actuarial Science, was the local contact for a group that dined with a fireman and his family. “The best part was the friends I made, I still see one of them regularly to just chat or play squash,” he said. That friend is Vincent Antonozzi, a second-year BEcon&Fin student who came to HKU from France. “We had a great dinner and there was good communication between all of us, which made this experiment enriching for everyone,” he said. CEDARS also organises peer language tutoring and other programmes to help students connect with each other. The Review 2019
Transdisciplinary Team Honoured HKU’s Common Core team won the prestigious UGC [University Grants Committee] Teaching Award (Team) in 2019 in recognition of their success at breaking down boundaries and exposing students to new and challenging learning experiences. The Common Core@HKU: Transdisciplinarity-in-Action Team, as it is formally called, includes Professor Gray Kochhar-Lindgren, the Director of the Common Core, as well as Dr Hu Xiao from the Faculty of Education, Professor Gina Marchetti 1 4 1 5 Teaching and Learning from the Faculty of Arts, Mr Mathew Pryor from the Faculty of Architecture and Dr Julian Tanner from the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine. Their achievements include creating multiple learning formats through the Common Core, such as flipped classrooms, summer school courses, experiential learning classes and Common Core Global Experiences; establishing partnerships with community organisations in Hong Kong; and launching GLADE, the Global Liberal Arts Design Experiments, to collaborate with partner research-intensive universities around the world to deepen integrative learning for undergraduates. (From left) Mr Mathew Pryor, Professor Gina Marchetti, Professor Gray KochharLindgren, Dr Hu Xiao and Dr Julian Tanner. Common Core Kudos The interdisciplinary, integrated education pioneered through the Common Core was extended to other universities in Hong Kong and Mainland China in 2018–19 and has earned honours for its achievements. The China Liberal Arts Summer Sessions (CLASS) offered five Common Core courses with Nanjing University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Zhejiang University in the summer, with students spending two weeks on the Mainland and one week in Hong Kong. Students at The Science of Crime Investigation class, the most popular of the ten courses in the Responsive4U project, which allows students from four local universities to take selected General Education and Common Core courses in the partner institutions. They also launched the Transdisciplinary Team Project in which small groups of students from different disciplines take on a joint research project, exemplified by Dr Tanner’s initial course on research and community awareness around hepatitis C. “We prefer to say ‘trans-’ rather than interdisciplinary because we don’t want to presume pre-established disciplines that are merely complementing one another,” Professor Kochhar-Lindgren said. “Transdisciplinarity enhances our capacity to pose new questions, invent research methods across disciplines, and learn together how to better co-create scalable responses in the context of our most difficult and fascinating challenges.” The team will next focus on developing undergraduate research projects related to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals of gender equality, sustainable cities and communities, and good health and well-being that will involve students both from HKU and from partner UGC-funded universities. CLASS Experiments The Common Core crossed borders in 2019 with a pilot programme offering courses with partner institutions in Mainland China. The China Liberal Arts Summer Sessions (CLASS) offered five credit-bearing courses over an intensive three weeks, with students spending two of the weeks at either Nanjing University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University or Zhejiang University with Mainland students, then one week at HKU. The courses covered scientific revolutions, gender and health, Hong Kong cinema, globalisation and architecture, and the development and social implications of stem cells. Professor Sham Mai-har of the School of Biomedical Sciences taught the stem cell course and welcomed the built-in exchange component. “The Hong Kong students loved our course because we were able to spend a lot of time with them. The Zhejiang University students loved us even more! Their normal teaching modes are quite conventional and use traditional didactic methods and they had not experienced our open approach to teaching and learning before. The teachers there who sat in our course were also impressed with this,” she said. Professor Quentin Parker of the Department of Physics co-taught the course on scientific revolutions with Dr George Akom of the Faculty of Science and welcomed the opportunity to take the Common Core in a new direction. “I am a huge fan of the Common Core and its importance for our students. The CLASS initiative helps expand the concept to the Mainland and provide opportunities for students from HKU and elite Mainland universities to interact, work together and build friendships and trust. Anything that breaks down barriers and widens opportunities and experiences for students has my support,” said Professor Parker. Sharing Our Resources A programme to share Common Core and General Education courses across four institutions had a successful pilot run in 2018–19. The programme, funded with $15 million from the University Grants Committee, involved HKU, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who each offered at least one course open to all students from the four institutions. Of the first 10 courses on offer, seven were HKU Common Core courses. Course times and delivery formats were adapted so students from other campuses could more easily attend, such as using online learning and flipped classrooms. The most popular course was The Science of Crime Investigation led by Dr Philip Beh Swan-lip of the Department of Pathology, which is the only one of its kind in Hong Kong. Dr Beh was already revamping his course to include gamification, augmented reality, flipped classroom and other features, so it was not difficult to factor in learners from other institutions. “The students were required to work efficiently in groups towards a final project presentation and it was not noticeable which institution they were from,” he said. Professor Ricky Kwok Yu-kwong, Associate Vice-President (Teaching and Learning), oversaw the pilot from HKU and analysed the feedback from students, who reported enjoying the opportunity to study at other institutions and to take courses otherwise not available to them. “Some of them also said that they were not able to go on exchanges overseas, so they appreciated the opportunity to study outside their home institution,” he said. The Review 2019
In collaboration with the University of California, Berkeley, Dr Kevin Tsia (far right) from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering was awarded a funding of over US$2 million from the BRAIN Initiative Fund of the US National Institutes of Health for a project to develop a high-speed optical imaging technology for recording fast neural activity throughout the living animal brain. 1 6 1 7 Research and Innovation The Review 2019 ON FERTILE GROUND Opportunity came knocking in 2019 as vast new sources of research funding became available in Hong Kong. HKU scholars quickly seized the day to advance their research. The University also invested in attracting more young stellar talent from around the world to augment our foundations for future growth.
a top performer in the Theme-based Research Scheme and the Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship Scheme, among others. Easier access to research funds from Mainland China was also a highlight of the year. Hong Kong scholars can now apply to certain national funding programmes for research that will be conducted in Hong Kong. The first Hong Kong recipient was Professor William Lu Weijia from the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine who received a RMB27.44 million grant from the National Key R&D Program run by the Ministry of Science and Technology (see page 22). HKU also did well in the prestigious Excellent Young Scientists Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), which recognised Hong Kong and Macau scientists for the first time in 2019. Seven HKU scientists were honoured, the most of any local institution. HKU scholars also succeeded in securing funding for 21 projects under the NSFC. Access to research funding on the Mainland is not confined to the national level. Guangdong and Shenzhen both signalled that Hong Kong scholars could apply to their funding programmes, too, and five HKU projects received grants under the Shenzhen Science, Technology and Innovation Commission. HKU is also playing an active role in the new The 2018–19 academic year brought remarkably good news for scholars in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong government released a large new reservoir of research funding, while doors opened for Hong Kong scholars to apply for certain competitive research grants from Mainland China. HKU is well poised to take advantage of these opportunities, having applied ourselves rigorously in recent years to recruit stellar academics, encourage and provide opportunities for interdisciplinary research, forge collaborations with top-ranked universities around the world, and invest in upgrading our facilities. In 2019, legislative approval was given to boost government funding for research to $20 billion. Some of this will be used to launch InnoHK, which provides as much as $500 million each for major cross-disciplinary research programmes. Although the results of InnoHK were not announced in time for The Review’s deadline, HKU submitted strong proposals in health and artificial intelligence and robotics that have great promise of being approved. In addition, the University continued to be very successful in the standard competitive funding programmes of the Research Grants Council (RGC). In 2019 we were the top performer among all Hong Kong institutions in the General Research Fund, receiving $162.521 million for 217 projects. HKU was also results will not be out for at least another year, but the exercise has contributed to the momentum within the University community to deepen our research impact. Another forward-looking development in 2018–19 was the announcement of the Tech Landmark, which will be built at 2 University Drive on the Main Campus. This will significantly upgrade and expand our facilities for scientific and technological research. The Tech Landmark will have four buildings dedicated to 10 strategic research areas that have a strong interdisciplinary focus. The first institute to be established will be the Institute of the Mind, which received a $150 million donation from Dr Lee Shau-kee. Underpinning all these activities is our leadership in research integrity. In June 2019, HKU hosted and co-chaired the 6th World Conference on Research Integrity. Some 700 delegates came from around the world to discuss integrity issues related to innovation and commercialisation, and assessment of research. The latter led to the formation of the Hong Kong Principles for Assessing Researchers: Fostering Research Integrity, which is a blueprint for scholars around the world on responsible research conduct. HKU’s excellence, coupled with its commitment to research that is ethical and reproducible, mark us out as a global leader. Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Centre for Interdisciplinary Sciences, which will be a powerful science and technology hub in southern China. The foundation of our success in these endeavours is our strong talent pool. The University has been strategically recruiting promising and outstanding 1 8 1 9 scholars, including those with an interdisciplinary focus. (Interdisciplinarity is also encouraged through our Strategically Oriented Research Themes [SORTs], which were launched in 2017–18 to provide seed funding for developing projects.) We made a major commitment in 2019 to invest in young talent with the launch of our Presidential PhD Scholarships and Post-doctoral Fellowships. Our aim is to attract the best young scholars in the world and provide them with funds to support their research at HKU, in addition to funds provided by the Hong Kong government. About 100 scholars will be recruited in each category over three years. To further sharpen our focus on grooming young talent, the deanship of the Graduate School has been turned into a full-time position and an associate dean has been charged with the portfolio of promoting innovation and internship and providing graduate students with alternative career development paths. Achieving impact from research is a central aim of our work and of growing significance in academia, reflected in the RGC’s coming Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). This is the first time the RGC will assess impact and the University has provided extensive support to help scholars prepare, including providing funds for gathering evidence and bringing experts in to give advice and organising a series of impact-related workshops. The RAE Growing Human Capital through the Strategically Oriented Research Themes (SORTs) focuses on our new generation of academics whose works are inspirational and promising, providing indicative highlights of our emerging talents and illustrating the rich dimensions of the SORTs. The brochure can be viewed at www.rss. hku.hk/sort/sort-2019/. Jointly organised by the Graduate School, Graduate House and Postgraduate Student Association and aiming to promote interdisciplinary research amongst postgraduate students, the Interdisciplinary Research Competition (IRC) was held for the third time in April 2019. Research and Innovation The Review 2019 in 2018–19 with partners on all five continents. 2,670 ongoing research collaborations ranked by Clarivate Analytics in 2019, based on producing multiple highly-cited research papers. named by the Mainland government, honouring for the first time the exceptional talent of Hong Kong and Macau scholars. HKU had the largest share (7 out of 25 awarded) in the region. 13 7 Highly Cited Researchers Excellent Young Scientists for new research grant projects. HKU’s cumulative funding from the RGC includes $162.521 million (excluding on-costs) in General Research Fund grants, for which it has been the top recipient in 16 of the last 17 rounds. Two of the five Theme-based Research Scheme projects awarded in 2019 were led by HKU scholars, who were awarded a total of $105.56 million (including on-costs). Other funding sources include the government, industry, non-government organisations and other local and non-local sources. New contract research projects for the government and industry amounted to $146.8 million in 2018–19. $373.7M $843.9M funding from UGC and RGC funding from other sources The 6th World Conference on Research Integrity was held at HKU in June 2019 with the participation of 700 delegates from around the world. +
2 0 2 1 World-leading Researchers Thirteen HKU academics were identified as being among the top 1% in their field in Clarivate Analytics’ list of ‘Highly Cited Researchers 2019’. Inclusion in the list is based on producing multiple highly-cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations in their field during the year, and thus have significant impact in their respective fields of study. The cross-field category is to acknowledge researchers who are recognised as leaders in more than one field. Professor Nagendra Shah School of Biological Sciences Agricultural Sciences Physicist Wins China’s ‘Nobel Prize’ Hung Hing Ying Distinguished Visiting Professor in Science and Technology and alumnus of HKU’s Department of Physics, Professor Luk Kam-biu, has been named a laureate of China’s 2019 Future Science Prize. The Future Science Prize is considered China’s ‘Nobel Prize’ and is awarded jointly by groups of scientists and entrepreneurs. Professor Luk, who is also a Professor at the University of California at Berkeley and a Senior Faculty Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, won the prize in physical sciences jointly with Professor Wang Yifang, Director of the Institute of High Energy Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The pair have led the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment and contributed to the discovery of a new type of neutrino oscillation, which opens the door for new advances in physics. HKU is a co-leader of the Daya Bay project with 41 other universities and research institutions and Professor Luk praised the teamwork involved, singling out HKU. “HKU has played a special role in this endeavour. It was through the first meeting held in the Physics Department at HKU that the Daya Bay project was launched. The generous support of the HKU administration during the early stage of the initiative undoubtedly seeded the success of the experiment,” he said. Professor Luk previously won the 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics and used part of the fund to Professor Sydney Tang Chi-wai, awarded the Croucher Senior Medical Research Fellowship 2019. Professor Luk Kam-biu Talent Finder HKU’s research success has been built on recruiting and nurturing talented scholars at all stages of their careers. Their excellence continued to be recognised by their peers in 2019. establish the Luk Kam-Biu Prize in Experimental Physics in HKU’s Department of Physics to encourage students to specialise in experimental physics. He is also mentoring Assistant Professor Dr Jenny Lee in the Department of Physics in nuclear physics. Local Honours HKU scholars performed well in local award schemes that recognise quality, impactful research in both humanities and the sciences. Four of the nine recipients of the Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship Scheme of the University Grants Committee (UGC) came from HKU, the most of any local institution. They included Professor Brendan Weekes of the Faculty of Education for a study on intervention and prevention of neurodegenerative disease in the Greater Bay Area; Professor Kendall Johnson of the School of English for a study of early American missionary printing in China; Professor Johannes Chan Man-mun of the Faculty of Law for a study of the role of the judiciary and judicial independence under Hong Kong’s ‘One Country, Two Systems’ arrangement; and Professor Frank He Xin, also Faculty of Law, for a study of gendered divorce litigation in China. Professor Sydney Tang Chi-wai in the Department of Medicine was awarded the Croucher Senior Medical Research Fellowship for his work to deepen understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms of chronic progressive kidney disease. Dr Huang Kaibin Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Professor Yiu Siu-ming Department of Computer Science Computer Science Cross-Field Professor Zhang Tong Department of Civil Engineering Professor James Lam Department of Mechanical Engineering Economics and Business Cross-Field Engineering Engineering Environment and Ecology Professor Dennis Leung Yiu-cheong Department of Mechanical Engineering Professor Kevin Zhou Zheng Faculty of Business and Economics Professor Zhao Guochun Department of Earth Sciences Professor Guan Yi School of Public Health Geosciences Professor Sun Min Department of Earth Sciences Professor Joseph Peiris School of Public Health Professor YaoWang Department of Physics Geosciences Physics Professor Xiang Zhang President and Vice-Chancellor Research and Innovation Professor Brendan Weekes Professor Kendall Johnson Professor Johannes Chan Man-mun Professor Frank He Xin The Review 2019
Professor Benjamin Cowling (left) from the School of Public Health and Professor Lo Chung-mau (right) from the Department of Surgery. 2 2 2 3 National Key R&D Recipients Scholars from Hong Kong and Macau are now allowed to apply directly to the National Key R&D Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) for funds that will be used for research conducted here. This scheme offers substantial funding for key and strategic research technologies. Two rounds of applicants were awarded during the year and HKU scientists were winners in both rounds. Organ reconstruction using 3D printing is the focus of Professor William Lu Weijia, Ng Chun-Man Professor William Lu Weijia (right) and Dr Kelvin Yeung Wai-kwok (left) from the Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology. Attracting Support For years, our researchers have had great success in competitive funding exercises and 2019 was no exception. We performed strongly in both Hong Kong-based schemes and those from Mainland China. Professor in Orthopaedic Bioengineering in the Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, who was the first scientist in Hong Kong and Macau to be awarded under the MOST scheme outright. He and his team have invented high precision 3D bio-printing technology and new ‘bio-inks‘, and they received RMB27.44 million to apply their technology to rebuilding complex tissue structures according to their natural physiological tissue microenvironment. “Tissue damage and organ failure caused by ageing, disease and accidents may potentially lead to increased morbidity and mortality in patients. Although recent advances in tissue engineering and biomaterials have regenerated injured tissues and organs, the clinical outcome, especially for the functional recovery, has not been satisfactory due to the complexity of human tissues. We propose to address that clinical challenge by focusing on the tissue microenvironment,” Professor Lu said. He is leading a multidisciplinary team from five institutions in Mainland China and Hong Kong, as well as an industrial partner. They will fabricate functional 3D bio-printed scaffolds for tissue and organ regeneration and aim to print 12 different tissues and organs, such as full-thickness skin, cornea, bone, cartilage and large blood vessels, to test in pre-clinical animal models. Positive results will mean they can proceed to clinical trials and ultimately benefit hundreds of thousands of patients each year. Developing new alloys is the focus of a project that awarded RMB11.07 million in the second round of the MOST scheme open for Hong Kong and Macau to Professor Huang Mingxin of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Professor Huang has both industrial and academic experience in working with metal and alloys, and he will lead his team in developing new nanostructured high entropy alloys that have the potential for application in extremely low temperatures or in nuclear power plants. “We have always been actively looking for funding opportunities beyond Hong Kong. When we saw this call for proposals, we felt that our research expertise fitted very well with the programme. Through this project, we want to demonstrate that HKU’s expertise can make important contributions to national R&D projects,” Professor Huang said. His team includes researchers from HKU, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian University of Technology and Xi’an Jiaotong University, covering expertise in such areas as metallurgy, mechanics, nuclear technology and ab-initiocalculation. TRS Scholars Offer Paths to Better Health HKU professors from the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine are leading two of the five Theme-based Research Scheme (TRS) projects awarded in 2019, while other HKU scholars are members of two other projects. Control of influenza is the focus of a $50 million TRS project coordinated by Professor Benjamin Cowling in the School of Public Health. The project will build on HKU’s world-leading influenza research programme to address important questions about influenza virus immunity and transmission. Professor Cowling and his multidisciplinary, multi-institutional team will be identifying signs that an individual has protection against influenza infection or severe disease and looking at which of these are induced by prior natural infection or vaccination. They will also consider the factors that make populations more susceptible to influenza, how to best deploy new and existing influenza vaccines to reduce the impact of epidemics and pandemics, and other immunological mechanisms that are relevant to the development and evaluation of new influenza vaccines. “Our overall aim is to improve options for the control of pandemic and seasonal influenza through a greater scientific understanding of the mechanisms underlying individual and population immunity. This includes complementary research on virology, immunology, epidemiology, and vaccinology,” he said. “It’s really important that we have these large collaborative thematic research projects because by working together, we can have much greater potential impact through the synergy between our disciplines.” Liver tissue repair, particularly after transplantation, is the focus of a $45 million TRS project by Professor Lo Chung-mau. The prevalence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and liver cancer incidence and the shortage of deceased organ donors is a great burden on individuals and the healthcare system. Professor Lo, who is Chair of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Chin Lan-Hong Professor in Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery, and Chief Executive of the University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen Hospital, will be building on HKU’s world-leading expertise in liver transplantation, particularly living donor liver transplants using a graft of the right liver lobe. He and his team will focus on the persistent problems of recurrent disease and liver graft injury post-transplantation by exploring the underlying mechanisms of cancer recurrence and HBV reactivation, identifying biomarkers and developing potential treatments. They also hope to promote liver tissue repair and regeneration, which would help get around the problem of a shortage of organ donors. Professor Lo and his team will be working with a biobank of about 50,000 tissue and liquid biopsies from patients. “Using this biobank, we will establish a system that integrates high-throughput sequencing data and biology and immunology parameters that will enable us to predict disease recurrence and prognoses and offer therapeutic guidance,” he said. New drug targets and therapeutic strategies are expected to result. Professor Huang Mingxin from the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Research and Innovation The Review 2019
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