Hong Kong University of Science and Technology will speed up its development plans in mainland China by enrolling students for classes in September 2019, two years ahead of the expected completion date of its Guangzhou campus. The university has been very proactive and speed up its development plans in mainland China because they want to grasp opportunities from the Greater Bay Area - a national strategy to turn Hong Kong, Macau and nine nearby cities in Guangdong province into an innovation and technology hub.

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. So, once the HK institutions are able to tap into the mainland’s resources including funding, advanced equipment and large-scale biological samples, it could advance its technological development.

Source: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3001387/hong-kong-u...

Comments by Anna Lee, Head of Education Services (North East Asia)

China's State Council announced The Greater Bay Area blueprint in February, one of the priorities is allowing HEIs and research institutes in Hong Kong and Macao to participate in government-funded research projects, and enabling their subsidiaries in Guangdong to receive government support and participate in provincial-level projects in an equivalent way to Mainland R&D institutes, it also enables the setting up of special funding schemes for joint innovation projects.

This is a good news for Hong Kong HEIs – they can benefit from new sources of research and development funding and get access to mainland academic and research funding schemes. This will have little direct impact on UK institutions though, while the increased linked up in GBA may create opportunities for multilateral partnerships such as joint research projects between institutions in the UK, Mainland China and one or both of the SARs.