Scientists in Hong Kong will not bend to Beijing just because they get state funding, local scholars say
Comments underscore earlier call to provide local researchers with national support or risk losing talent
Two top Hong Kong scholars have dismissed concerns of academic freedom being compromised under a new policy allowing access to national-level funding for local researchers, as Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung Kin-chung hailed the move as a boost to the city’s innovation and technology development.
Professor Andy Hor Tzi-sum, vice-president for research at the University of Hong Kong, said reputation was very important for academics, and he did not believe any of his peers would feel obliged to follow orders from the central government on research just because they were receiving funding.
Another scholar, Joseph Lee Hun-wei, a professor of engineering and public policy at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, echoed Hor’s views, saying approval of projects on the national level is done by independent experts.
The move was in response to an appeal by 24 of Hong Kong’s leading scientists and university professors who wrote to him last year to “express their pressing hope to make a contribution to the motherland”.
“Research is very simple,” Hor said, speaking on a radio programme on Sunday.