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HKUST 2011-2012 Annual Report
Expanding the postgraduate
experience
Overseas recruitment helped to boost international
research postgraduate numbers as enrolment rose by
80 per cent from 2010-11 to 2011-12. In 2011, the
School received the largest number of candidates among
engineering faculties from the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship
Scheme for the second consecutive year and continued to
draw a large number of first-rate research students from
Mainland China.
Boosting internationalization, research ties with top
universities were strengthened through partnerships.
These included Memoranda of Understanding on
academic, scientific and technological exchange and
cooperation with Moscow State University, Russia, École
Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Étienne, France,
and Kobe University, Japan. There were agreements
on joint PhD programs with Pohang University of
Science and Technology, Korea, and Sharif University of
Technology, Iran. A summer internship program with
Tsinghua University and a co-supervision agreement with
Zhejiang University were put in place. A student-designed
research postgraduate professional development program
was launched to focus on communication skills, career
development and leadership.
Cutting-edge research laboratories
A joint research laboratory with Xilinx Inc, the global
leader in All Programmable technologies and devices,
was officially opened to support cross-platform and cross-
disciplinary research and promote internationalization and
interdisciplinary research.
The Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering
launched the HKUST-NIE Social Media Lab, Asia’s first
research laboratory specializing in the study of social media
culture and technologies and a next-generation facility to
collect data which helps business and advertising and to
develop technology for digital life.
Global and community reach
Along with its exchange program with over 90 partners,
the School widened the diversity of its undergraduate
population to 30 nationalities through international
recruitment. This helped international undergraduate
applications to grow from 384 for the 2010 intake to
597 for the 2011 intake, a leap of 55 per cent. Among
them were two of Malaysia’s top students who were
among eight students out of 53,000 candidates to gain
five A grades in Malaysia’s nationwide pre-university STPM
examination.
The School launched the co-curricular Global and
Community Engagement Program in 2011 to encourage
all-round student development through international
and local engagement in competitions, conferences
and professional events. It also provided a platform for
students to contribute their engineering knowledge to
the community. The HKUST Robotics Team, part of the
Program, was restructured in 2011 into four student sub-
teams which received nine awards in local, regional and
international competitions. Team membership increased
to over 70 from the School’s six departments.
