HKUST Annual Report 2019-2020

SCHOLARSHIPS AND AWARDS Scholarships are a way of the University to diversify its educational reach by recognizing students’ academic and non-academic achievements across numerous different areas. Total funding for scholarships awarded to all undergraduate and postgraduate students was around $95 million, an increase of 9% compared with the previous year. Non-academic scholarship programs launched over 2019-20 included recognitions for arts, music, and more, students in financial need or facing obstacles in chasing their dreams, and for those taking actions to serve for social good. In addition, 28 elite student athletes received Alumni Endowment Fund Athletic Awards. Overall, 355 non-academic awards, collectively worth $4.9 million, were offered. In tertiary-wide competitive scholarships, the University once again drew keen interest from international students. Under the Hong Kong government’s Belt and Road Scholarship scheme, 15 awardees (20%) joined HKUST from Vietnam, New Zealand, Turkey, Bangladesh, and Myanmar, among others. In locally focused schemes, 10 HKUST students were recognized under the Hong Kong government’s Innovation & Technology Scholarship scheme and through D. H. Chen Foundation Scholarship, which aims to nurture insightful leaders. The University introduced the HKUST RedBird PhD Scholarship Program to recognize the academic performance and research capacity of outstanding PhD candidates. Externally, HKUST continued to secure the highest number of awardees in the prestigious Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme among the UGC-funded universities, attracting 64 out of 250 (26%) awardees for 2020-21 admission. These Fellowship students hail from 16 countries and regions and will add considerably to the internationalization of the University’s research student community. In addition, HKUST was awarded 81 (16%) fellowship places in six taught postgraduate programs in the first cohort of the University Grants Committee’s Targeted Taught Postgraduate Programmes Fellowships Scheme in 2020-21. The scheme was introduced to encourage local students to pursue further studies in priority areas for the development of Hong Kong. million $ awarded to both undergraduate and postgraduate students 95 Scholarships 9%YoY Awards 355 Non-Academic Awards were offered DEVELOPING A GLOBAL MINDSET Despite the COVID-19 crisis impacting regular student exchange arrangements from late January 2020 onward, around 890 students studied at partner institutions in our extensive global exchange network in 2019-20 overall, helping them to develop multicultural perspectives and broaden understanding. In addition, the Office of Global Learning worked with university partners to provide virtual courses to replace the University’s credit-bearing summer study abroad experience in non-traditional destinations, such as Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Poland, and Russia, benefiting a total of 100 students. use virtual reality to develop such a lab for mechanical engineering undergraduates in the second half year of 2020. Life Cycle Thinking Over the year, the Division of Environment and Sustainability launched its Life Cycle Thinking workshops to equip students with the mindset to assess the environmental performance, cost, and trade-offs of products and systems. Such thinking and assessment tools are already used by many multinational corporations. With smart and sustainable designs almost a must for new technical solutions and innovations, the ability to evaluate and quantify whether a novel design idea is genuinely more sustainable than pre-existing solutions has become a significant capability for students to develop (see P42). Practitioner Input The University incorporated further real-world insights from industry into students’ learning over the year to broaden perspectives and add greater social relevance. Among these courses, a collaboration between the School of Business and Management and Microsoft in Spring 2020 resulted in Hong Kong’s first artificial intelligence (AI)-centric MBA elective. The course featured Microsoft guest speakers from various operational departments, who shared their experience of howAI can transform business in areas ranging from financial services and human resources management to customer service, and others. AR/VR and Gamification HKUST’s technology and innovation strengths enable the University to adapt the latest hi-tech trends into its active learning strategies, as well as to respond to novel circumstances, such as the COVID-19 outbreak. Over 2019-20, Teaching Development Grants administered by the Center for Education Innovation supported four projects focused on the theme of augmented reality (AR)/ virtual reality (VR) and gamification (activities that solve problems by applying game principles and elements). All will use different modes in adopting these approaches. Among them is a proposal to use a digital gaming platform to enliven the learning of probability and statistics in civil engineering. In response to the rising demand for virtual laboratories for online learning, another project aims to TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY EDUCATION million 4 . 9 worth $ HKUST ANNUAL REPORT 2019-2020 13 12 Learning For Life