I’ve been at the University of Hong Kong for nearly seven years as an Australian astrophysicist and space scientist in the Department of Physics. Over this period, I’ve seen some very challenging times, not least the 2019 violent social unrest that also engulfed our normally quiet institution of higher learning and, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, I’ve also seen a significant and very encouraging increase in the opportunities on the Chinese mainland now available to Hong Kong-based scientists and technologists. This is helpful and timely to our top universities as they offer fresh avenues to partner and collaborate with our often more-generously-funded mainland counterparts. This gives me much hope and encouragement for a brighter research future. It’s an inspiration and motivator for common endeavors and promises to unlock more of our potential in science and technology by leveraging the resources, facilities and capable partners now within our reach.
Scientific and technological cooperation with the mainland is happening more regularly and in ever more diverse, exciting and sophisticated ways to mutual benefit. This provides for enhanced progress as our communities work more closely together than ever before. Facilitation of this growth in working together is via new, generous, joint funding programs for combined and coordinated efforts. This includes the new joint initiative of the Croucher Foundation and the Chinese Academy of Sciences under the CAS-Croucher Funding Scheme for Joint Laboratories as a recent example. Such a positive, much-welcomed initiative comes with the opening up of both Hong Kong and Macao-based researchers to direct access to the National Key R&D programs available through the Ministry of Science and Technology. This is a highly significant development, implemented over the last few years, that has already led to some important Hong Kong-led research successes. These various programs are very valuable additions to the more traditional university research funding programs offered by the HKSAR government under its own University Grants Council.
I believe these emerging opportunities for HK-based scientists are directly related to China’s rapid emergence as a major science power with demonstrated capacity in technology, innovation and basic science. This is evident in the increasing number of patents emanating from China over the last few years that now significantly exceed those from the United States, Japan and Europe. A recent paper (Sun & Cao 2021) put at least part of this success down to “a grand experiment” that the Chinese government began about 15 years ago as part of the 2006-20 National Medium and Long-Term Plan for the Development of Science and Technology, that was intended to turn China into an innovation-focused country. To my mind, they seem well on the way to achieving this in at least several key areas, such as AI and quantum computing. One only has to look figuratively and literally “up” at all the successes in the last couple of years in my area of space science that clearly demonstrates capacity, innovation and achievement — just think of the Chinese moon and Mars rovers and the new Chinese space station. While on the ground, the commissioning of “FAST” — the world’s largest single-dish radio telescope — has impressed astronomers, just as the American equivalent and previously the world’s largest, collapsed spectacularly in Puerto Rico this year from neglect and lack of funds. As an interested and objective observer with no axe to grind, this rise and fall of two enormous single-dish radio telescopes encapsulated for me an intersecting moment of contrast.
Just this week, we received our first scientific data from the FAST telescope from our mainland-based colleagues who are part of a joint HKU Sun Yat-sen University project. I’m personally benefiting from these mainland facilities and opportunities now available. Indeed, my own Laboratory for Space Research at HKU has, over the last 3 years, negotiated a series of important memoranda of understanding and formal agreements with several major mainland bodies that would have been impossible just a few years ago. Here, with our partners, we commit real intent and resources to joint endeavors. One example includes the “Lobster Eye” X-ray Satellite that was launched in July last year, thanks to the support of our mainland partners of the Beijing Institute of Space Mechanics and Electricity and Nanjing University. We anticipate this space research mission, the first of its kind for Hong Kong, will deliver exciting eye-opening outcomes. (e.g. see https://www.hku.hk/press/news_detail_21360.html). At the heart of all these indicators of progress is, for me, the issue of trust. It is not just the intent and the availability of programs and opportunities for joint scientific and technological collaboration with the mainland that matters, what’s equally valuable is the trust in your partners and they in you, which allows us to work together effectively with confidence within these schemes. I put great store in developing such trust and, when you have it, it’s the most precious commodity of all that drives everything forward together.
In parallel to all of the above, there’s the ongoing establishment of branch universities on the mainland side of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area by nearly all Hong Kong Special Administrative Region universities. There cannot be a stronger sign of cross-border collaboration. My own university, HKU, is the last of 7 HKSAR universities to commit to setting up a joint campus in Shenzhen under an integrated “one university two campuses” approach. To me, this is a very exciting and innovative development as all students and teachers will be able to travel, study and work between the two campuses as needed. The clear intent is to create a more seamless, integrated HKU straddling both sides of the boundary with educational benefits spreading across the entire Greater Bay Area and also more broadly, given HKU’s high international reputation and standing.
There are also various other formal channels that promote cooperation in science and technology between the HKSAR and the mainland. These include joint conferences, planning of joint laboratories and the ongoing establishment of State Key labs in Hong Kong. I, personally, see all these beneficial, strategic activities as a harbinger of the eventual integration of our research infrastructure and programs. Indeed, the strengthening of scientific and technological cooperation under the “one country, two systems” approach is one specific advantage our science community can enjoy while not preventing or affecting the majority of our existing global scientific collaborations and partnerships that have dominated our international connections in the past. It is one that can leverage our special status and unique placement in this part of Southeast Asia to enhanced global effect.
In summary, our place in the Greater Bay Area in particular and our increasing incorporation into its broad ecosystem, will depend ever more strongly on seizing the opportunities for mainland cooperation. These are almost limitless for our Hong Kong-based scientists, researchers and technologists. There has never been a better environment to reach out, join up and work together for mutual benefit and shared prosperity via the proving ground the Greater Bay Area offers for all sorts of smart city technologies, infrastructure and initiatives over the coming decade. All this is underpinned by an invigorated tertiary education system that is ever more interconnected and open to talent in all its diverse forms as incubators for ideas, innovation and integration.
The author is a professor at the Faculty of Science, director of the Laboratory for Space Research, and a member of the Academic Senate of the University of Hong Kong.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.