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HKUST 2015-2016 Annual Report
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Making a Splash in Sport
More active use of HKUST’s beautiful shoreline
is now underway, with the Water Sports Festival held
in September 2015. The event promoted aquatic
pursuits such as water polo, coastal rowing and dragon
boating, and coincided with the groundbreaking
ceremony for Phase I of the Water Sports Center.
In international sporting success, Kimberley Vanessa
Cheung (Biochemistry and Cell Biology) brought
home a silver medal in the Asian Under 23 Fencing
Championships in Mongolia, and a bronze medal
in the Ladies Foil Team at the Asian Fencing
Championships in Singapore. During a student
exchange at Koc University in Turkey, Ka Man Leung
(Environmental Science) captured gold in the night
sprint and bronze in the super sprint at the Istanbul
Orienteering Cup, a competition involving more than
350 participants from 12 countries.
POSTGRADUATE EDUCATION
On the postgraduate front, student numbers have
been growing steadily, with a total of 4,628 as of
31 December 2015, comprising 1,833 research
postgraduates and 2,795 taught postgraduates.
To assist their studies and financial needs,
220 scholarship awards were offered to 209
postgraduates in2015-16. Togetherwithundergraduate
awards, the total amount of scholarships awarded
through the University reached $68.8 million, a 7%
increase from the previous year.
In external awards, HKUST continued its success in
the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme, established
by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council to draw
the best doctoral students from around the world
to the city. The University has recruited the largest
number of awardees for five years in a row and one
out of six HKUST PhD students is from the Scheme.
In the 2016-17 cohort, the University secured 51
out of a total of 231 awardees, representing 21%.
Scheme fellows come from 28 countries and regions,
contributing significantly to the cultural diversity of
HKUST’s research student community.
Raising Visibility and Recruitment
To widen the multicultural composition of the
postgraduate population, the University proactively
conducted outreach trips to connect with institutions
in targeted countries, including Japan, Malaysia and
Hungary, and strengthened its e-marketing via the
Hotcourses platform. The Office of Postgraduate
Studies hosted two webinars to reach out to potential
students globally. For local students, the Office
organized biannual MPhil and PhD information
sessions for potential applicants to learn more about
further studies opportunities as well as financial
support and potential career paths following research
studies. As a result of these combined efforts,
local and international applicants for research
postgraduate programs in 2016-17 grew more than
10% from the previous year.
Masters arranged events in their individual halls and
kept up traditions encouraging lasting connections
with HKUST.
Student-initiated activities fostering campus-wide
belonging were encouraged via a range of schemes,
including the President’s 1-HKUST Student Life Award
(44 projects), Student Enrichment Activities Fund
(40 projects), and Graduate Student Life Fund (18
projects). Initiatives over the year included Humans of
HKUST, sharing the life views of students from different
cultures, and UST Great Minds 2016, featuring talks by
10 student-nominated professors.
Strengthening Community Service,
Leadership Skills and Internships
Building a sense of responsibility toward others
is an integral part of a HKUST education experience.
Through HKUST Connect, the University’s flagship
social engagement platform, the campus community
collaborated with 65 partners to offer different types
of service learning opportunities. Over the year, 2,558
students engaged in 125 such projects, including
one local work camp and 12 service learning trips
to Mainland China, Macau, Cambodia, Indonesia,
Vietnam and the US. The signature HKUST Service
Learning Day recruited 895 students, faculty
members, staff and alumni to take part in 52 service
projects with 27 community partners in April 2016.
In recognition of such spirit, the Wu Zhi Qiao (Bridge
to China) Charitable Foundation awarded the Best
Community Project and the Best Wu Zhi Qiao Project
to 2014-15 HKUST Wu Zhi Qiao team members for
their work in Yunnan. The team also received the
Outstanding Performance Gold Award (Hong Kong
Team) for their dedication throughout the year.
The University’s REDbird Award Program continued
to provide student leadership training opportunities.
In 2015-16, 128 members and nine student leaders
were recruited to work on initiatives with the University
and local community. Three members received
financial sponsorship from the REDbird Overseas
Service Learning Program to join overseas service
learning trips. Five REDbird gold, 13 silver and 55
bronze awards were granted to recognize students’
dedication and achievements.
The “HeadStart@HKUST Program” (HeadStart), which
aims at offering first and second year undergraduate
students a “head-start” in the increasingly global
and competitive society through an early workplace
immersion and career development scheme, was
launched in February 2016. Unlike common internship
programs, HeadStart consists of three components
– Internship, Mentorship, and Fellowship – that are
designed to provide students with a holistic workplace
training and career enrichment experience. A total
of 56 students worked in internship positions provided
by 24 local and international corporate partners.
