Bulletin Summer‧Autumn 1992

T h e U n iv e r s i t y O b ta in s H K $ 2 8 from th e U P GC fo r R e s e a rc h T o ta l B u d g e t o f H K $ 1 2 2 M i l l i o n f o r 1992-93 This year, the Research Grants Council of the Un iversity and Polytechnic Grants Committee (UPGC) made available HK$122 million to support research activities in the seven local tertiary institu tions under its aegis. Of this amount, $6 million has been set aside for central allocation to strengthen the research base in the seven institutions. HK$36.5 million was directly disbursed to these institutions to finance small projects costing less than $200,000 each. The balance of $79.5 million was open for com petition by deserving research proposals submitted by the academic and research staff in the different institutions. C U H K Takes a Q u a r te r o f the P ie Through the coordination of the University's Research Administration Office, 77 CUHK research proposals were submitted to the Research Grants Council late last year to compete for the HK$79.5 million earmarked for the purpose, and 44 of them were selected for support. To gether they obtained earmarked grants totalling HK$ 19.264 million. The University itself also obtained a direct grant of HK$9.1 million from the UPGC's HK$36.5 m illion budget for small research projects. The disburse ment of this $9.1 million is at the full discretion of the University's Research Committee and its seven subject panels. In other words, the University was given a total of HK$28.364 million, or close to 25 per cent of the resources made available by the UPGC for research in 1992-93. D is t r ib u t io n o f G ra n ts by Research A r e a The UPGC's Research Grants Council has classified all successful research projects by subject into 11 areas, and the University's 44 supported pro jects fall into eight such areas. The three areas where no CUHK submission has been made include civil engineering, mechanical engineering, law and town- planning - areas currently not covered by the Univer sity's programmes of studies. In terms of the amount of research grants ap proved for the 44 CUHK projects in the eight re maining categories, medical projects rank top with a score of HK$5.8 million, followed by projects in the physical sciences category ($3.97 million) and the biological sciences category ($3.29 million). Details are given in Table A below. Competitiveness w ith R e le v a n t C o u n te rp a rts in O th e r In s titu tio n s In terms of the percentage of UPGC allocation for CUHK projects in each category, projects relating to administrative, business and social studies fared best, managing to seize 41.7 per cent of the UPGC allocation for that category. They are followed by medical projects (39.2 per cent) and the biological science projects (34.8 per cent). Relevant statistics are listed in Table B. Research A rea No. o f Projects Supported Am ou nt A llocated (H K $m ) O verall Percentage Medicine Physical Sciences Biological Sciences Electrical & Electronic Engineering Computer Science, Information Technology & Mathematics Administrative, Business & Social Studies Education Arts & Languages 16 7 6 2 3 5 3 2 5.806 3.976 3.299 1.702 1.506 1.465 0.836 0.674 30 21 17 9 8 8 4 3 44 19.264 100 Table A 8