Hong Kong University of Science and Technology to speed up mainland China expansion plan by enrolling students two years earlier than opening of Guangzhou campus
- Professor Nancy Ip says the university has been very proactive as it wants to grasp opportunities from Greater Bay Area scheme
- HKUST announced plans to build a campus in Guangzhou in October
Professor Nancy Ip Yuk-yu, HKUST’s vice-president for research and development, revealed the revised schedule in an interview in Beijing.
HKUST announced plans to build a campus in Guangzhou in October. At the time, university president Wei Shyy said students would be able to apply for its graduate degree programmes from as early as 2020, and classes would begin in September 2021.
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However, Ip said they later decided to make it a parallel arrangement, starting the courses in September, before the groundbreaking ceremony for the campus at the end of this year.
“The students who enrol will take lessons and do research at the Clear Water Bay campus first. Once the Guangzhou campus is ready, they will move there,” said Ip, an internationally renowned scientist and a deputy to the National People’s Congress.
“We want to have a trial first and see the reaction of students. You may say we are very proactive as we don’t want to sit back and wait.”
Ip said programmes with themes of artificial intelligence and robotics would be offered, with the intake dependent on the reaction, adding that current students could also apply.
“The Greater Bay Area is a national strategy, and a very good platform for Hong Kong to advance its innovation and technology,” Ip said.
She said cross-disciplines would be the focus of the Guangzhou branch to facilitate industrialisation of research findings.
Admitting some HKUST professors might be drawn across the border, Ip believed the brain drain was only a short-term problem and in the long run, Hong Kong would benefit from the bay area.
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For example, she said Shenzhen had a supercomputer but Hong Kong did not, so once the city was able to tap into the mainland’s resources including funding, advanced equipment and large-scale biological samples, it could advance its technological development.
Beijing plans to increase its budget for science and technology by 13.4 per cent this year to 354.3 billion yuan (US$52.7 billion) as China tries to take on the US in the hi-tech sector.
Ip said the Guangzhou branch – twice the size of the Hong Kong campus – would be well equipped with advanced laboratories.
