With a transparent strategic imaginative and prescient for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is actively aligning its training, analysis, and innovation efforts with nationwide development priorities.
Through a rising community of industry-academia-research partnerships, the college is contributing to the cultivation of new applied sciences and talent to meet the evolving needs of societal, industrial, and nationwide development.
Serving because the spearheading physique of CUHK’s innovation and know-how development within the Greater Bay Area, the college’s Shenzhen Research Institute (SZRI) has performed a pivotal position in remodeling educational excellence into industrial impression.
As the primary wholly owned analysis institute established by CUHK on the Chinese mainland, SZRI marked an early foothold for Hong Kong universities within the huge financial hinterland.
In an unique interview with China Daily, Lin Huangquan, government director of SZRI, stated that amid fast social development and technological adjustments, the emphasis on talent cultivation in universities has developed from fundamental analysis to industrial purposes.
Hong Kong universities’ cooperation with the mainland has additionally advanced from scattered joint initiatives within the preliminary stage to extra strategic, proactive analysis initiatives, particularly since a bunch of analysis establishments have been established on the mainland round 2010. Today, know-how switch has change into a precedence, highlighting nearer integration with {industry}.
In line with these traits, SZRI has achieved quite a few accomplishments. Leveraging its institutional frameworks acquainted to Hong Kong and profound connections with mainland authorities businesses, enterprises, public establishments, and industrial organizations, SZRI has change into a complete hub for cross-boundary scientific collaboration.
Established in 2007, the institute has developed greater than 20 extremely lively worldwide analysis groups. Building on CUHK’s strengths, it focuses on cutting-edge analysis in biomedicine, engineering, fundamental science and different sectors.
The institute has undertaken greater than 700 analysis and industrial initiatives, revealed over 3,000 papers, and filed 120 patents. It has educated almost 50 postdoctoral researchers, main the push amongst Shenzhen-based college analysis establishments.
Its innovation hub, based in 2018, has attracted 138 startup groups, together with 20 nationwide high-tech enterprises and 9 specialised and complex small and medium-sized enterprises licensed by mainland authorities.
Startups incubated by the hub have secured over 2.09 billion yuan ($307 million) in social financing and greater than 78.5 million yuan in authorities funding, producing over 3,100 jobs and holding greater than 823 legitimate mental property rights, together with over 130 invention patents.
Under a pilot program, SZRI has facilitated the cross-boundary switch of the mainland’s medical human genetic sources and bioinformatics knowledge to Hong Kong, supporting high-level medical analysis on a number of fronts, equivalent to Professor Dennis Lo Yuk-ming’s mission for screening early-stage most cancers utilizing plasma DNA.
Through SZRI, a number one examine on the intestine microbiome and digestive system cancers, led by Professor Yu Jun, has been chosen for the nation’s flagship “Science and Technology Innovation 2030” initiative, marking a milestone for the institute in enterprise national-level analysis.
With the assist of SZRI, Professor Yu Bei’s group utilized AI-generated know-how to overcome bottlenecks in industrial foundational useful resource databases, strengthening China’s technological self-reliance on this space.
Looking to the nation’s fifteenth Five-Year Plan (2026-30) interval, Lin stated the institute goals to concentrate on the development of new high quality productive forces and additional strengthen the collaboration mannequin of “conducting R&D in Hong Kong, achieving technology transfer in Shenzhen, and advancing industrialization across the Greater Bay Area”.
SZRI additionally plans to leverage two main strategic cooperation platforms — Hetao and Qianhai — to set up a extra environment friendly mechanism for cross-boundary movement of analysis components equivalent to samples, knowledge, talent, funding, and mental property rights, he added.
In addition to this complete platform in Shenzhen’s Nanshan district, CUHK has established one other analysis institute in Hetao targeted on fundamental analysis collaboration between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, in addition to the brand new InnoHub for New Quality Industries in Qianhai, constructing a multitiered collaborative innovation community.
The institution of InnoHub marks the most recent milestone in CUHK’s innovation highway map within the Greater Bay Area, representing a brand new part in know-how commercialization and new high quality productive forces.
Isabella Poon Wai-yin, provost of CUHK, stated that the college has established a community of affiliated and associate establishments throughout the mainland, together with the CUHK-Shenzhen Campus, to deepen ties in training and analysis and information switch.
In the longer term, the college seeks to increase exchanges with these mainland establishments to strengthen their capacities. It will enrich the curriculum of a pioneering “2+2 double major program” with CUHK-Shenzhen, which permits undergraduates to spend two years at every campus with versatile course choices, in accordance to Poon.
Beyond Shenzhen, CUHK additionally launched a joint funding initiative with CUHK-Shenzhen and the Guangdong provincial authorities, pledging 90 million yuan to assist in-depth technological cooperation from 2024 to 2026.
She hopes to increase ties with Greater Bay Area cities like Foshan and Dongguan, whereas eyeing deeper collaboration with Shanghai and Beijing, each seen as national-level innovation powerhouses.
Meanwhile, amid intensifying world competitors for talent, Poon stated CUHK has unveiled a collection of initiatives to assist Hong Kong’s bid to change into a global training hub.
In February, CUHK hosted the Asia-Pacific Association for International Education (APAIE) Conference and Exhibition 2026 — one of the world’s high three worldwide training conferences — attracting over 600 organizations from world wide.
In response to the rising demand for top-tier mathematical talent pushed by technological developments, the college established the Zhizhen School of Interdisciplinary Mathematical Sciences final yr, led by internationally famend mathematician Professor Shing-tung Yau.
This yr, amid expeditious developments in geopolitics and worldwide diplomacy, CUHK will launch the Diplomacy and International Studies Major Programme, the primary such program in Hong Kong devoted to the examine of diplomacy.
In graduate training, the college is establishing a devoted “Graduate College” at its Sha Tin primary campus, aiming to foster high-impact analysis communities and appeal to high world talent to pursue careers in Hong Kong.
In line with the nation’s technique to construct a number one training powerhouse throughout the fifteenth Five-Year Plan, Poon pledged that CUHK will concentrate on scholar expertise, analysis and innovation, and a worldwide perspective to improve its affect inside the world increased training panorama.
Against this backdrop, the continued development of platforms equivalent to InnoHub displays CUHK’s long-term dedication to advancing innovation and new high quality productive forces within the Greater Bay Area.
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