Chinese University’s research centre on mainland helped turn new technology into products and services amid Hong Kong’s Covid curbs, scholars say

Researchers from an institute set up by the Chinese University of Hong Kong in neighbouring Shenzhen have said the centre has helped overcome hurdles in transforming new technology into products and services in the past two years of cross-border travel curbs amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Liu Yunhui, a professor of mechanical and automation engineering at the university, was one of the scholars who led about 50 staff members to take more than 10 projects to mainland China since the founding of the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Research Institute (Futian) in December 2020.

The centre was established during a time when cross-border travellers needed to undergo quarantine, and the requirement made it challenging for researchers to carry out work on the mainland, he said.

Taking up two storeys of a block in the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Co-operation Zone, the centre’s official opening was postponed to Tuesday due to the pandemic, even though it began operations in 2020.

Among the key projects is an automatic robotic system for transferring and vitrifying embryos in assisted reproduction created to reduce human error in the manual procedure.

“Communications with manufacturers and potential buyers in the Greater Bay Area were direct. As we have a physical presence in the major market, they could see our results directly during the Covid-19 days,” Liu said on Tuesday at the institute located in Futian District near the border.

“A base in Shenzhen ended up helping our university remove a lot of hurdles in the process of realising our research outcomes.”