The University of Hong Kong

Overview of Research Activities of

The University of Hong Kong 2006–07

 

 

Major Institutional Policy Developments

 

The University of Hong Kong (HKU) seeks to sustain and enhance its excellent reputation as an institution of higher learning through outstanding teaching and world-class research, so as to produce rounded graduates with life-long abilities to provide leadership within the society they serve.

 

The University’s research policy flows directly from this corporate vision. Its aim is to strengthen its capabilities in both basic and applied research within a culture that strives for excellence and relevance as well as collaboration.  The University emphasizes innovative, high-impact and multidisciplinary research, and believes that a fine research record enhances the quality of research postgraduate education.  It recognizes that it must be fully accountable for the effective management of the public and private resources it deploys towards its research aims, and welcomes the opportunity to act in partnership with the wider community to generate, disseminate and apply knowledge.

 

To further develop the University’s research excellence and to realize its vision to be recognized as one of the top research-led universities in Asia and in the world, the University Research Committee has developed the following five strategies:

 

1.       to develop strategic research areas and themes;

2.       to support ‘blue-sky’ and curiosity-driven research;

3.       to nurture next-generation scholars and researchers;

4.       to encourage knowledge transfer to community and society; and

5.       to enhance international and Mainland collaborations.

       

The University is placing particular emphasis on strategic interdisciplinary research in selected fields for the valuable synergies it can produce.  It is focusing its support and investment in eight interdisciplinary strategic research areas of unique significance to Hong Kong and the region. These are:

 

1.      Biotechnology and drug development

2.      Built and natural environments

3.      China studies

4.      Communications

5.      Computer science and technology

6.      Human health and development

7.      Nanoscience and nanotechnology

8.      Public law and public policy.

 

Within these eight strategic areas, the University has identified 21 themes.  In some of these themes it has already achieved a global reputation.  It is also striving to provide the research environment for new and important niche areas of research to emerge.

 

While strengthening its research focus in this way, the University is also investing in the human resources necessary to sustain a research culture dedicated to excellence.  It intends:

 

(a)    to recruit 200 additional professoriate faculty members internationally by 2012;

(b)    to increase the proportion of full professors to attain a minimum of 30% of academic staff, with funding for at least 50 endowed professorships; and

(c)    to triple the number of postdoctoral fellows (from 100 to 300) and more than double the number of research postgraduate students (from 1,500 to 3,600).

 

Within this broad strategic framework the University continues to encourage research excellence in a number of important specific areas.  It continues to fund curiosity-driven research with small project grants, and to incubate new research initiatives with seed-funding grants.  It continues, through its RPg reform policies, to develop a culture of student-centred, performance-based, and shared-responsibility research.  It continues to support specific research proposals with a China focus by supplying matching funding for the central government’s ‘973’ and ‘863’ projects (the major mainland programmes for basic and applied research respectively).

 

The following institutional policy developments took place during the report period. 

 

Strategic Research Areas and Themes

 

The University continued to emphasize the eight strategic research areas and 21 subsidiary themes identified three years earlier as the focus of its interdisciplinary research endeavours, and decided to prioritize the award of seed funding in order to encourage further research in these areas.  A private donation of HK$2 million was also made available for the two best performing strategic research themes, and bids for this sum were invited and assessed.  Progress made in developing each strategic research area was highlighted in the University’s Institutional Research Strategy Statement prepared for the UGC’s 2006 Research Assessment Exercise.  The University Research Committee (URC) was told in February 2007 that one of its most important tasks in the year ahead was to consider the future direction of the SRTs, how they might be reformulated or rationalized, and how new and emerging SRTs might be identified; and to assist in this process arrangements were made at the end of the report period for individual theme groups to present their research findings at a major Review Forum to be held in September 2007.        

 

Research Assessment Exercise 2006

 

In April 2007 the URC considered the results of the 2006 RAE, in which the University of Hong Kong was ranked top in two panels but was placed third overall.  While noting that the result was disappointing and that the scoring system failed to do justice to some of the University’s undeniable strengths, the URC focused its discussions on how the University could do better in the next RAE.  It decided that an analysis of the results should be promulgated widely within the University, that Faculties should be invited to evaluate their research strengths in the light of the RAE scores and adjust their Faculty Development Plans accordingly, and that a research evaluation and strategy-formulation exercise should be conducted in due course to prepare for the next RAE.            

 

URC Research Support Budget

 

In June 2007 the URC decided to replace the existing, fragmented funding system for research spending at the University of Hong Kong with a single, forward-looking research support budget.  This reform was made in the context of an anticipated increase in research spending (largely accounted for by the recruitment of additional staff under the University’s Centenary Recruitment Plan) from its 2006–07 baseline level of $124 million by at least 20% in the next three years.   

 

Research Integrity

 

During the 2005–06 report period the University established a central University-wide committee structure to give ethical clearance to research proposals from both clinical and non-clinical faculties involving human participants and live animals, and introduced appropriate operational guidelines and procedures.  In June 2006, having put in place the proper mechanisms to enforce ethical behaviour, the URC considered how to develop a systematic agenda designed at raising awareness of the importance of research integrity.  It agreed (a) to hold meetings or workshops to debate contentious issues that came to light during the implementation of the University’s research integrity procedures; (b) to conduct experience-sharing workshops tailored to the needs of individual faculties; and (c) to issue emails and articles at regular intervals to remind staff of the importance of observing the highest ethical standards in conducting research.  It also suggested that there should be interaction with the Working Group on the 3+3+4 curriculum to explore ways of inculcating in undergraduate students a proper understanding of ethical behaviour in research, and undertook to review the operation of the University’s policies and procedures on research integrity in a year’s time.

 

Areas of Excellence Scheme, Fourth Round

 

During the 2005–06 report period the URC established a panel to try to ensure that the University submitted at least half a dozen proposals of the highest quality and worthy of funding support in the fourth round of the AoE scheme.   In September 2006 the URC directed that the top-performing Strategic Research Themes were best placed to submit proposals, and should therefore be prime candidates.  In October 2006 it urged that the PIs of two or three proposals that had nearly won funding in the third round should be encouraged to resubmit in the fourth round, and stressed that all proposals should take seriously the themes of both inter-institutional and intra-institutional collaboration.  Ten initial proposals were submitted to the UGC in November 2006.

 

Review of Research Output Prize

 

During the 2005–06 report period the University strengthened its institutional mechanisms for encouraging and recognizing outstanding research by establishing a new, faculty-based Research Output Prize under its Outstanding Researcher Awards scheme.  Unlike the existing Outstanding Researcher and Outstanding Young Researcher Awards, which recognize sustained research excellence over a period of several years, the Research Output Prize is intended to reward the authors of outstanding individual publications such as refereed journal papers, books or CD-ROMs.  Each Faculty may nominate one research output published or created in the previous calendar year for a Research Output Prize, and prize winners receive a certificate and a monetary prize of HK$100,000 to further their research.  Ten Research Output Prizes were awarded in December 2006 (see paragraph 59), and in February 2007 the URC reviewed the experience of the first year of the scheme.  It decided that the prize should continue to be an annual award category under the Outstanding Researcher Awards scheme, and that the selection procedures and criteria should remain the same as for the first year, including the number of awards per Faculty and the period of eligibility for the output items.    

 

Conference Grants

 

In June 2006 the URC reviewed the University’s existing procedures for the administration of conference grants, in the light of a large increase in the number of conference grant applications from both staff and students.   It was agreed that the maximum amount to be granted should be raised to HK$15,000; that the existing HK$4,000 cap on registration fees and accommodation expenses should be removed; that RPg students should be given the flexibility to attend more than one conference per year (in the case of staff) or during their entire candidature (in the case of students), provided that the total expenditure thereon did not exceed the maximum amount set for the grant; that, subject to additional funding being made available, PhD students should be allowed to apply for the conference grant twice during their candidature, and Postdoctoral Fellows twice during their employment period. 

 

Centenary Recruitment Plan

 

During the 2005–06 report period the URC decided to allocate 24 additional Research Assistant Professor posts to Faculties under the University’s Centenary Recruitment Plan, whereby 200 additional professoriate posts would be created by 2012 to cater for the four-year undergraduate curriculum and to boost the University’s research prowess.   It was agreed, in view of the University’s focus on interdisciplinary research, that these 24 posts would be allocated under a bidding process by Faculties on the basis of their strategic and development plans, and that priority of consideration would be given to Faculty bids made in collaboration with Strategic Research Themes.  Bids were invited in October 2006 and adjudicated by the URC in November, and the 24 posts were allocated to Faculties in accordance with these principles.

 

HKU–SPACE Research Fund

 

In December 2006 the Board of Directors of the University’s extension arm, HKU–SPACE, agreed that a sum of HK$2.5 million should be used to establish an HKU–SPACE Research Fund.  The Fund would be used to support research activity at the University, particularly in the area of small research grants.  In February 2007 the URC agreed that this sum should be made available to newly-appointed Assistant Professors who were successful in the 2007–08 round of Seed Funding for Basic Research grants exercise.  They would be allowed to apply, on a first-come-first-served basis, for a top-up grant of up to HK$100,000 to support a Type B RPg place, on condition that the top-up grant was matched dollar for dollar by the applicant’s Faculty or Department. 

 

 

Collaborative Research

 

The increasing importance of collaboration in research is fully recognised by the University’s management and by individual researchers.  In addition to joining forces with local institutions, the University is an active participant in Universitas 21, a consortium of leading universities around the world dedicated to the internationalisation of higher education. 

 

The University also collaborates with a number of leading institutions, laboratories, pharmaceutical companies, research institutes and government bodies, both in mainland China and overseas. Partnership with industry has also been reinforced to promote the application of research results.

 

Large numbers of individual researchers undertook collaborative projects during the report period with researchers in the PRC or elsewhere in the world across a wide range of activities, including joint research projects, co-authoring of papers, teaching or lecturing, providing consultancy or peer review services, supervising research students, and serving as external examiners. 

 

In May 2007 the University launched a major collaborative initiative with the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the City University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology to study Kunqu, the art form behind all modern forms of Chinese opera.  In 2001 Kunqu was classified by UNESCO as ‘a masterpiece of the world’s oral and intangible heritage’.  The research initiative, led by Professor Pai Hsien-yung, seeks to assemble an archive on Kunqu, study its development, and promote greater awareness of this important art form.   At the end of the report period the project’s preparatory committee was planning to hold an international convention on Kunqu in Beijing, in collaboration with several important Chinese and international agencies.

 

University–Industry Partnership

 

Two institutions, Versitech Ltd and the recently-established Technology Transfer Office, provide services in areas such as training, contract research and consulting, incubation of University start-up companies, and intellectual property management, and also assists University inventors to patent and protect their inventions.      

 

There were a number of examples of successful university-industry partnership during the report period.  In November 2006 Versitech Ltd and the Shandong Computer Science Center of the Shandong Academy of Sciences signed a collaboration agreement for further research and development of the Digital Evidence Search Kit (DESK), a software package developed by the University’s Department of Computer Science.  DESK is a multilingual software package that supports English, traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese and Japanese, and was designed to assist law enforcement agencies to examine, acquire, analysis, search and document the digital evidence of a computer system.  The collaboration agreement is expected to pave the way for the wider deployment of DESK within Mainland China.

 

In March 2007 the University announced the successful development of an environmentally-friendly micro-wind turbine technology that enables wind turbines to start generating electricity at wind speeds as low as 2 meters per second and to be installed on balconies at home or on the rooftops of buildings.  The technology was jointly developed by the University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and French inventor Mr Lucien Gambarota, founder and president of Motorwave Limited, and is expected to find important practical applications both in Hong Kong and elsewhere.

 

The University is keen to bid for funds under the Innovation and Technology Fund’s University-Industry Collaboration Programme.  Since the programme’s inception in 1999 the University has received total funding of just under HK$25.5 million for 25 approved projects. 

 

 

Research Highlights

 

Significant Research Achievements

 

A number of research highlights in 2006–07 are listed below:

 

2007–08 CERG Exercise

 

The results of the 2007–08 CERG exercise were announced in July 2007. In this exercise the University submitted a total of 522 applications, of which 190 were approved (24% of the total number of projects supported).  For the ninth time in the past ten exercises, the University received the lion’s share of the funding.  It was awarded HK$138.277 million—28.4% of the total CERG funding allocation of HK$486.994 million. This success was achieved in an increasingly competitive climate.

 

Innovation Technology Support Programme (ITSP)

 

Awards from the Innovation and Technology Fund under the Government’s Innovation Technology Support Programme (ITSP) have been an increasingly important source of funding for the University since the programme’s introduction in 1999.  The University has had 60 projects approved in the past six years (24% of the 250 projects approved in total since 1999), and has been granted funding of HK$241.7 million for these projects.  During the 2006–07 academic year 8 of the University’s applications under the ITSP were approved (up to September 2007), and funding of HK$18.8 million was awarded in respect of these projects. 

 

NSFC/RGC Joint Research Scheme

 

The University also did well in 2006–07 in bidding for funds under the National Natural Science Foundation of China/Research Grants Council (NSFC/RGC) Joint Research Scheme.  Funding of HK$10 million was awarded to 15 projects submitted by six UGC-funded institutions.  The University submitted 44 preliminary proposals, of which 10 were shortlisted and 4 funded.  It received funding of HK$2.85 million, 26.7% of the total allocation.     

 

Croucher Foundation ASIs

 

The Croucher Foundation sponsors a number of Advanced Study Institutes (ASIs) each year, to enable experts in a particular field to meet and conduct advanced tuition on a defined topic. In April 2006 funding of HK$600,000 was granted to the University of Hong Kong for the ASI ‘Molecular Genetics and Cell Signaling in Cancer and Cancer Metastasis’ by Prof. I. O. L. Ng (Department of Pathology).  This ASI was conducted on 1 February 2007.

 

In April 2007 the University was awarded funding of HK$590,000 for the ASI ‘Recent Advances in Diabetes and Its Complications’, by Prof. S. S. M. Chung (Department of Physiology).   

 

Croucher Foundation International Conferences and Seminars

 

The Croucher Foundation also provides sponsorship for international conferences and seminars in the fields of natural science, technology or medicine.  Such events must be of direct benefit to Hong Kong, and preferably have a strong research emphasis.  Two such conferences were organised by the University’s researchers during the report period:

 

-         23–26 October 2006, 1st Asia-Pacific Conference on Luminescence Dating, by Dr S. H. Li (Department of Earth Sciences); and

-         30 November–2 December 2006, 4th Congress of the Federation of Asian-Oceanian Neuroscience Societies, by Prof. Y. S. Chan (Department of Physiology). 

 

During the report period the Croucher Foundation also approved sponsorship grants to Prof. L. Samaranayake (Faculty of Dentistry), to organize the 2nd International Conference on Evidence-Based Advanced Dentistry (November 2007), and to Prof. L. C. Chan (Department of Pathology), to organize a conference on the theme ‘Stem Cells in Leukemia and Lymphoma: Biology, Animal Models and Future Directions’ (January 2008).

 

External Academic Honours

 

The University of Hong Kong has a proud record of academic recognition.  Ten of its researchers are members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, more than at any other UGC-funded institution.  The University has also been awarded more Croucher Foundation Senior Research Fellowships (27 out of a total of 67 fellowships awarded since 1997) than any of its sister institutions.

 

During the report period a number of the University’s researchers were the recipients of important external academic honours:

 

(a)    Prof. C. M. Che (Department of Chemistry) was awarded a first-class State Natural Science Award for his work in reactive metal-ligand multiple bonded complexes;

 

(b)   Prof. M. L. Chye (Department of Botany), Prof. Z. D. Wang (Department of Physics) and Prof. S. Y. Leung (Department of Pathology) were awarded Croucher Foundation Senior Research Fellowships; and

 

(c)    Dr M. C. L. Chau (School of Business) won the ‘Best Conference Paper Award’ at the 10th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS) 2006 held in Kuala Lumpur in July 2006.  His paper ‘A Framework for Locating and Analyzing Hate Groups in Blogs’ defeated over 300 submissions from 25 countries.

 

Outstanding Researcher Award Scheme

 

The University encourages and rewards distinguished research achievement by its staff by conferring its own outstanding research awards at a well-attended annual ceremony.  At a ceremony held on 21 December 2006 the University conferred the following awards in respect of research achievements during and prior to the report period:

 

(i) Outstanding Research Student Supervisor Awards

-         Prof. S. F. Chen (Department of Botany)

-         Prof. C. L. Lai (Department of Medicine)

-         Prof. G. A. Postiglione (Faculty of Education)

-         Prof. C. Y. Sin (School of Chinese)

 

(ii) Outstanding Young Researcher Awards

-         Dr A. Djurisic (Department of Physics)

-         Prof. L. K. S. Ho (Department of Law)

-         Dr J. Huang (Department of Biochemistry)

-         Dr B. P. Y. Loo (School of Geography)

-         Dr T. W. Ng (Department of Mathematics)

-         Prof. P. C. Y. Woo (Department of Microbiology)

-         Dr A. Xu (Department of Medicine)

-         Dr B. Young (Department of Civil Engineering)

 

(iii) Outstanding Researcher Awards

-         Prof. D. T. M. Chan (Department of Medicine)

-         Prof. D. L. Phillips (Department of Chemistry)

-         Prof. B. C. Y. Wong (Department of Medicine).

 

In 2005 the University strengthened its institutional mechanisms for encouraging and recognizing outstanding research by establishing a new category under its Outstanding Researcher Award Scheme.  This new category, the Research Output Prize, is intended to reward the authors of outstanding individual publications such as refereed journal papers, books or CD-ROMs.  Ten Research Output Prizes were awarded in December 2006, the first year of the scheme’s operation, for the following research outputs:

 

-         Faculty of Architecture:  Prof. K. W. Chau, Dr S. K. Wong, Dr C. Y. Yiu, ‘Improving the Environment with an Initial Government Subsidy’, Habitat International, 29 (2005), 559–69;

 

-         Faculty of Arts:  Prof. C. M. Hutton, Race and the Third Reich (Cambridge, 2005);

 

-         Faculty of Business and Economics:  Prof. K. C. Tse, Dr C. K. Yim, Dr K. Z. Zhou, ‘The Effects of Strategic Orientations on Technology- and Market-Based Innovations’, Journal of Marketing, 69 (2005), 42–60;

 

-         Faculty of Dentistry:  Dr M. C. M. Wong, ‘Bayesian Analysis of Clustered Interval-Censored Data’, Journal of Dental Research, 84(9) (2005), 817–21;

 

-         Faculty of Education:  Prof. E. M. L. Yiu, ‘Electromyographic Study of Motor Learning for a Voice Production Task’, Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 48 (2005), 1,254–68;

 

-         Faculty of Engineering:  Prof. H. F. Kung, Prof. T. W. Lam, Dr M. C. Lin, Dr S. M. Yiu, Dr W. H. Wong, Miss Y. T. Cheung, Miss Y. C. Mui, ‘Filtering of Ineffective SiRNAs and Improved SiRNA Design Tool’, Bioinformatics, 21(2) (2005), 144–51;

 

-         Faculty of Law:  Dr H. Fu, ‘Re-Education through Labour in Historical Perspective’, The China Quarterly, 184 (2005), 811–30;

 

-         LKS Faculty of Medicine:  Prof. J. S. M. Peiris, Prof. Y. Guan, Dr H. L Chen, Dr K. S. Li, Dr G. J. Smith, Dr R. G. Webster, Dr S. Y. Zhang, Mr K. Qin, Ms J. Wang, ‘H5N1 Virus Outbreak in Migratory Waterfowl’, Nature, 436 (2005), 191–2;

 

-         Faculty of Science:  Prof. N. Mok, ‘Prolongation of Infinitesimal Linear Automorphisms of Projective Varieties and Rigidity of Rational Homogenous Spaces of Picard Number 1 under Kahler Deformation’, Inventiones Mathematicae (2005), 591–645; and

 

-         Faculty of Social Sciences:  Dr W. F. Lam, ‘Coordinating the Government Bureaucracy in Hong Kong: An Institutional Analysis’, Governance 18(4) (2005), 633–54.

 

Major International Research Events

 

Several important international research conferences were organized during the report period by the University.

 

In January 2007 the University brought 500 academics, professionals and senior citizens together in an international, interdisciplinary symposium ‘Preparing for an Elder-Friendly Hong Kong’.  The three-day symposium, jointly organized by the University’s Faculty of Social Sciences and the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, was aimed at at fostering positive community attitudes towards older people and improving the quality of care and quality of life for the elderly in Hong Kong.   The symposium formed one of a number of projects planned under the CADENZA initiative, a wide-reaching five-year community project launched by the Hong Kong Jockey Club in collaboration with local and overseas experts in social gerontology.  The project, with funding of HK$380 million, aims to train a new generation of experts in gerontology, revolutionize the way in which people view and care for the elderly, and promote respect for Hong Kong’s elderly people in the face of a rapidly ageing population.

 

In March 2007 the University hosted a two-day international forum to discuss advances in molecular medicine in China, identify important market opportunities in fields such as stem cell research and cardiovascular disease, and to explore biotechnology and biopharmaceutical opportunities in China.  The forum brought together over 200 leading scientists from around the globe, including Prof. David Ho of New York’s prestigious Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Centre, Prof. Jerry Yang of University of Connecticut’s Centre for Regenerative Biology, and Prof. Douglas Melton of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.

 

Published Research

 

The University has an excellent record of published research, both in discipline-specific journals and in more high-profile publications such as Science, Nature, and The Lancet.  As far as its academic publishing is concerned, it has the highest number of refereed publications, both in absolute terms and expressed as a ratio of publications per staff member, of any UGC-funded institution.  According to the latest available statistics, for 2005/6 (see RGC Annual Report 2006), the University had 4,934 peer-reviewed refereed publications. 

 

The University does particularly well in scientific publications.  According to statistics published by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), there were a total of 140,778 citations of 17,219 HKU papers in journals tracked by the ISI between 1997 and June 2007.  This was the highest number of citations of any UGC-funded institution.  In 2006 the University had 2,425 publications in journals tracked by the ISI, again more than any other UGC-funded institution.  The ISI also ranked 80 HKU academic staff among the world’s top 1% of scientists.    

 

Patents

 

The University has filed 679 patents in various parts of the world since 1998, mostly in the United States (296), the European Union (139) and Greater China (96 in China, including Hong Kong, and 14 in Taiwan).  During the same period 132 patents were granted, principally in the United States (67).  During the 2006/2007 academic year the University filed 81 patents.  During the same period 38 patents were granted and 21 patent applications were abandoned.

 

 

 

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