HKUST Annual Report 2019-2020

Birth of a Start-up HKUST biotechnology start-up SPES Tech, which is dedicated to developing next-generation hydrogel solutions for life science, bioprocess and regenerative medicine, demonstrates how the University’s innovation pathway provides valuable step-by-step support to its budding entrepreneurs. Starting from IP protection and receiving the Yeung Wing Yee Entrepreneur Fund and HKUST’s Proof-of-Concept Fund (later repositioned as Bridge Gap Fund), the student team behind the company was accepted for the University’s U*STAR Award, the Technology Start-up Support Scheme for Universities, and most recently the HKUST Entrepreneurship Fund. Through these different schemes, the students gained access to funding, lab resources and equipment, and the highly important impetus of encouragement. SPES Tech has now been offered a place on Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation’s Incu-Bio Programme. PARTNERSHIPS THAT FOSTER DISCOVERY AND APPLICATIONS HKUST added to its research institutes, centers, and laboratories in 2019-20, building greater capacity to advance emerging areas in biotechnology as well as pressing global issues such as sustainability and aging through an expanding range of partnerships and joint endeavors. To broaden the University’s knowledge transfer capabilities, a number of collaborative innovation platforms were established and agreements drawn up with mainland cities in the Greater Bay Area and other parts of the country (see P.35). In August 2019, the University announced the establishment of The Li Ka Shing Institute of Synthetic Biology, the first of its kind in Hong Kong. The cross- disciplinary field uses big data from genetics and related fields to explore interactions between biological and non- biological disciplines, including physics, computer science and math, chemistry and engineering. The Institute, supported by a $500 million donation from the Li Ka Shing Foundation, will seek research breakthroughs ranging from biomolecules to cells, and applications that can be turned into products promoting public health and environmental sustainability. Recognition of the University’s pioneering work in ocean science led to two major strategic partnerships with mainland institutions. The University was identified by the Qingdao National Lab for Marine Science and Technology to jointly organize the interdisciplinary Center for Ocean Research in Hong Kong and Macau. The Center will seek to tackle challenges in ocean science technology linked to regional and global issues, with sustainable development of the ocean economy, ecosystem, and environment in the Greater Bay Area forming a key priority. Regarding social development, research centers directed by School of Humanities and Social Science faculty brought the launch of the Global China Center, seeking to unpack the complexities of China in a global context through multidisciplinary research, and the interdisciplinary Center for Aging Science, focused on understanding health aging and technology-based solutions. The School was also chosen to host the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China’s Hong Kong branch to build collaborations. FROM PATENTS TO PRODUCTS When research leads to knowledge and technologies with potential for commercialization, it is then the turn of the University’s knowledge transfer unit to provide valuable assistance in protecting and promoting HKUST intellectual property (IP), transferring knowledge and technologies to industry, and fueling entrepreneurship among the University community. April 2020 brought the launch of the $5 million Bridge Gap Fund, formerly the Proof-of-Concept Fund, to facilitate technology validation at the pre-commercialization stage through funding support. The fund received 34 applications and supported 11 of the projects up to $500,000 each. Generating further opportunities, the Technology Start- up Support Scheme for Universities (TSSSU), launched by the Hong Kong government’s Innovation and Technology Commission (ITC), attracted 43 applications from HKUST in the funding exercise in the reporting year, bringing the total number of applications for TSSSU funding in the last seven years to 270. With 14 start-ups recommended to the ITC by the HKUST vetting committee, this brings the total number of HKUST affiliated TSSSU start-ups to 62. Around 70% of the TSSSU start-ups are using HKUST technology, and about 58% of these start-ups have joined incubation programs organized by the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation and Hong Kong Cyberport Management Company Limited. Majority of the TSSSU start-ups, around 76%, received external funding. HKUST’s own Entrepreneurship Program for promising early-stage technology start-ups had led to 39 active firms by 2019-20. The year also brought the launch of the HKUST Entrepreneurship Fund with $50 million funding to support early-stage University start-ups. The fund operates a co-investment model and invited venture capital funds, incubators/accelerators, and family offices to participate. Twelve private matching partners are now fully engaged and 12 international advisors are on board. The fund has currently invested in three University start-ups: Dayta AI, D-Engraver Ltd., and SPES Tech (see box below). Meanwhile, the HKUST Futian Base in Shenzhen was readied for use for R&D activities, entrepreneurship, incubation, and professional training programs. Incubator Blue Bay X got underway on one of the floors and five start-up companies founded by HKUST academics or alumni have moved in. Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Lab (Guangzhou) also invited HKUST to establish a Hong Kong Branch, which will focus on interdisciplinary marine scientific research into the health and safety of marine ecosystems in the Greater Bay Area and South China Sea. Moving from sea to sky, HKUST’s significant contribution to air quality improvements, locally and regionally, received a boost with the setting up of the Guangdong-Hong Kong- Macau Joint Laboratory of Collaborative Innovation for Environmental Quality, led by Jinan University and HKUST and funded by Guangdong Province’s Department of Science and Technology. A major component is a world- leading Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) Analytics Laboratory at HKUST, expected to be operational in 2021. This will have trace-level analytical capability to narrow down contributing sources and enable better control and reduction of ozone and particulate matter pollution. On the healthcare front, the Greater Bay Area Joint Laboratory of Infectious Diseases of the Respiratory System was established with members of the Division of Environment and Sustainability as co-principal investigators, along with other Hong Kong, Macau and Guangzhou institutions and a private diagnostics laboratory. The Joint Lab will provide a regional platform to address basic and clinical research on infectious diseases, to create better diagnostic tools and treatments, prevention and control strategies. HKUST Shenzhen Research Institute participated in the establishment of the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Innovation Research Institute of Brain Science, which is shaped around a collaborative partnership of the region’s premier biomedical institutes. Meanwhile, longstanding collaboration between University faculty and a major mainland hospital in Shanghai resulted in the HKUST-Shanghai Sixth People’s Hospital Joint Research Center for Brain Science to deepen existing research and develop novel therapies that can halt or reverse the effects of Alzheimer’s disease. Widening scope more generally, HKUST signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Guangzhou University to establish a Joint Research Collaboration Fund Scheme, with each university providing $500,000 per year, initially for three years, to support joint research initiatives. HKUST ANNUAL REPORT 2019-2020 21 20 Lab to Market