Set up on the foundation of the collaboration between CUHK and China Agricultural University, the SKL aims to relieve food shortage by increasing the yield of rice and other crops, improving their nutritional value and ensuring food safety through the development of molecular biotechnology. The SKL taps into Hong Kong’s advantages in global networking, international talent pool and modern management, and the Mainland’s strengths in economic power, research capacity and natural resources. Combining modern technology with traditional experience, the SKL enhances the technological reserve and productivity of Chinese agriculture through the development of new technologies and high quality research talent. The SKL is seeking breakthroughs in various frontier research areas in agrobiotechnology through enhanced global collaboration and strategic complementary partnership. Research priorities include crop improvement and technology platform, with the former covering rice yield enhancement and rice nutritional quality improvement, crop stress tolerance and rice disease resistance, and animal developmental and stem cell basic research, and the latter covering indica rice and soybean transformation systems and seeds as bioreactors.