Dear Colleagues,
At the Launch Ceremony of Hong Kong Metropolitan University, I made a commitment to encourage impactful research at HKMU within our means.
Since then, we have taken steps to enhance our infrastructural support for research, starting with the establishment of the Research Impact Fund (RIF) to support projects in our 10 Strategic Research Areas.
In addition to the RIF, the University just introduced several new schemes, namely the Faculty Research Start-up Fund, the Team-based Research Fund, and the Teaching and Learning Research Fund, to cater for the different needs of our faculty members. Also established was the President's Research Excellence Award, which is fully supported by the Katie Shu Sui Pui Charitable Trust, to recognise the outstanding performance and achievements of individual academic staff in research.
The aim of these efforts is to provide strategic and timely support to our faculty members to advance knowledge for the betterment of society at different stages of their careers.
To further enhance the societal impact of our research, the Research Office was repositioned as the Office of Research Affairs and Knowledge Transfer, and a Patent Committee was set up. At its inaugural meeting in April 2023, the Patent Committee considered the first batch of five patent applications arising from research work of HKMU faculty and about 10 applications have been or are being processed to date.
These numbers are not that impressive yet, but they represent an important milestone and symbolise our aspirations – big things have small beginnings. Of course, our colleagues are also making significant, but not patentable, contributions in other important fields.
In November, an agreement will be signed to establish a Research Institute (香港都會大學深圳研究院) in Shenzhen Virtual University Park (深圳虛擬大學園), which will provide a base for HKMU researchers to make an even greater contribution to the economic, social and technological development of our nation.
Paul LAM Kwan-sing
President
