British persuasion for higher education Applications to British universities have risen by 6.7 per cent over the same period last year, says the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service. For five years running, the UK has been the top overseas study destination for Hong Kong students. German Olympic hero to share his memories Olympic gymnastics champion Marcel Nguyen will meet students of the German programme at the University of Hong Kong on January 29. He will share his experiences and communicate with the students in German. In the 2012 London Games, Nguyen won double Olympic gymnastics silver medals and the first all-round gymnastics medal for Germany since the 1936 Summer Olympic Games held in Berlin. Professors pick up State Natural Science Award Baptist University professors Raymond Wong Wai-yeung, the associate head and chair professor of the chemistry department, and Zhu Lixing, head and chair professor of the mathematics department, have won the 2013 State Natural Science Award (second class). Wong and Zhu received the honour for their research projects "Multifunctional metallopolymers/metallophosphors and their emerging applications" and "Model checking and dimension reduction in regressions", respectively.