Bulletin Autumn‧Winter 2006

Five Major Areas for Focused Investment Academic Excellence CUHK has a vision to broaden its horizons and serve not only Hong Kong but also Greater China and the world. Prof. Lau says, ‘We need to gear ourselves up and be fully prepared for the many exciting opportunities open to us, locally, regionally, nationally and globally, as well as the potential challenges of maintaining our long-term competitiveness and sustainability…. Together we shall scale new heights of excellence; together we shall realize the vision portrayed in the University’s Ten-Year Strategic Plan .’ Aspirations for the Major Areas In Chinese Studies, Prof. Lau would like to see CUHK become in five to ten years the top choice of overseas scholars planning to study Chinese culture, economy and society, whether professors or students, and whether for a degree or just a short period. Biomedical Sciences is an area about which Prof. Lau is highly optimistic since our biomedical research is already at the scientific frontier. He sees CUHK becoming, in 10 years’ time, a top centre of Biomedical Sciences not only in Hong Kong, but in Asia and the world. Prof. Lau believes that Information Sciences is the key to the future and is confident that the departments in our Faculty of Engineering, being vibrant communities specializing in highly relevant research, will continue to do extremely well. Describing Economics and Finance as ‘the life-blood of Hong Kong’, Prof. Lau predicts that as China’s economy continues to grow, economic and financial experts at CUHK will stand to play a pivotal role in the region through their research, education and service. Geoinformation and Earth Sciences is an open discipline offering boundless opportunities. Prof. Lau hopes to see other disciplines at the University make good use of the resources and expertise of this innovative field to advance their own knowledge. Some Early Achievements Prof. Laupoints out that these focused investments have already begun to bear fruit. For example, the University launched the CUHK–Chiang Ching Kuo Foundation (CCKF) Asia-Pacific Centre for Chinese Studies, the first such CCKF centre in the Asia-Pacific region. Our Centre for Plant and Agricultural Biotechnology has succeeded in securing continuing funding (for eight years) from the University Grants Committee under its Areas of Excellence Scheme, the only research project to have done so. Researchers from the Faculty of Medicine have recently developed a revolutionary non-invasive method for the prenatal testing of Down’s syndrome. And four professors of engineering were elected Fellows of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in December 2006, bringing the total number of IEEE fellows at CUHK to 16, the highest among local universities. Focused Yet Non-exclusive Prof. Lau explains, ‘For investment in any type of research, one needs critical mass. Resources that are spread too thinly basically do not yield anything significant. The resources allocated to these areas are new. In other words, they will not affect the existing resources available to other areas of strength which we also support but in different ways. I would also like to emphasize that, while these areas are important, they are by nomeans the only ones receiving extra support. I congratulate all disciplines at the University on their hardwork and vision, and I wish them success.’ Focu ed Areas of Scholarship