The Chief Executive of HKSAR Government, Mr. John Lee, delivered the 2023 Policy Address on October 25, 2023, outlining the development strategies for Hong Kong.  One of the key themes of the Address was innovation and technology (I&T), building on the Hong Kong I&T Development Blueprint announced in December 2022.  The Policy Address introduced a number of new initiatives to further foster I&T, to promote the transformation and commercialization of research and development (R&D) outcomes from universities, to build up the talent pool in Hong Kong, and to increase the cap on the quota of non-local undergraduate enrollment from 20% to 40%.

The Policy Address emphasized support for advancing innovation and research in priority areas of I&T, including microelectronics, supercomputing, artificial intelligence (AI), life and health technologies, and the third InnoHK cluster in materials, energy and advanced manufacturing.  CUHK Faculty of Engineering is well-positioned to align with these strategic development directions.  In the 2022 ShanghaiRanking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects, the Faculty was ranked in the top 50 in the world in automation and control science, biomedical engineering, computer science and engineering, electrical and electronic engineering, energy science and engineering, and telecommunication engineering.  Additionally, CUHK was placed top in Hong Kong for both AI and computer science, and ranked third and tenth worldwide, respectively, in the Best Global Universities Rankings 2023 by U.S. News & World Report.  The Faculty’s laboratories and research environment have been recognized as 4* (world-leading) by international experts in the most recent Research Assessment Exercise commissioned by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong.  The Faculty’s core mission of research and education produces the new talents needed to support I&T development in Hong Kong.

CUHK Faculty of Engineering has been at the forefront of developments in AI and robotics.  Since October 2021, professors from CUHK Engineering were founding directors of three new InnoHK Centres under InnoHK, a major initiative of HKSAR Government to develop Hong Kong as a base for global research collaboration.  The three AIR@InnoHK Centres, namely: the Centre for Perceptual and Interactive Intelligence, the Hong Kong Centre for Logistics Robotics, and the Multi-Scale Medical Robotics Centre, cover research on AI and robotics technologies, as applied to advanced manufacturing, cognitive systems, intelligent agents, medical robotics and smart city.  

 
Hong Kong Centre for Logistics Robotics

Centre for Perceptual and Interactive Intelligence

Multi-Scale Medical Robotics Centre

The three InnoHK Centres serve as a hub to connect world-class researchers with our Faculty and strengthen research collaborations with some of the top institutions in the world including ETH Zurich, Imperial College London, Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The University of Manchester, and UC Berkeley.  Bringing together world-wide engineers and industry collaborators, the three InnoHK Centres connect research outputs with real users, translating our innovation and technologies into tangible benefits to the society.  Successful examples include dysarthric speech reconstruction, a high-speed solid-waste sorting system and an endoscopic surgical robotic system.  Meanwhile, the Faculty is also positioned to strengthen collaboration and explore commercialization of research outputs in the Greater Bay Area.  In the CUHK Hong Kong-Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Research Institute (Futian), which is a strategic priority of CUHK in driving close I&T collaboration in the Greater Bay Area, our scholars and researchers have initiated their research projects in the Institute and one of our key projects is a smart medical robotics platform.


CUHK Hong Kong-Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Research Institute (Futian)

Looking to the future, I expect many of the professors in CUHK Faculty of Engineering will actively participate in the new initiatives, such as the RAISe+ Scheme with enhanced funding which encourages professors to translate their academic research to real products and commercial applications, thus contributing to Hong Kong’s innovation agenda and strengthening the local economy.  We also welcome the plan of establishing the Hong Kong Microelectronics Research and Development Institute and an AI supercomputing centre in Cyberport which foster research and development of microelectronics and AI.  With the opportunities for internationalization and the research support outlined in the 2023 Policy Address, the Faculty remains committed to its mission of conducting world-leading academic and applied research and education in Hong Kong and bringing about advances in technologies that can have a beneficial impact to society.

Interim Dean of Engineering
Professor Hon Ki TSANG
Wei Lun Professor of Electronic Engineering