HKUST (Guangzhou)

FOSTERING CROSS-DISCIPLINARY PURSUITS Developing a Distinctive Education and Research Model HKUST(GZ) seeks to take the University’s education and research excellence to the next level through a dynamic and fully complementary synergy with our Clear Water Bay campus, with its degree programs focusing on cross-disciplinary thematic fields that complement those in Clear Water Bay without any duplication. Endowed with a rich scholarly heritage and inspired by the culture of innovation, HKUST has been achieving academic and research excellence with its longstanding and conventional school and department structures, which have laid the foundations for solid and well- established disciplines organized around well-defined subject areas in four Schools – Science, Engineering, Business and Management, and Humanities and Social Science. Over the years, the Clear Water Bay campus has successfully generated numerous research breakthroughs and ground-breaking innovations under this discipline-focused academic structure. With the world changing rapidly, there is an urgent need for a more holistic and integrative education and research approach to developing students’ core competencies beyond individual disciplines to overcome increasingly complex problems facing humankind today. Interdisciplinary Programs Office was therefore established as an initial effort to encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration in education and research. Over the past years, the Office has played an important role in addressing policy challenges such as sustainability and public policy in Hong Kong, the GBA, East Asia and the world. While capitalizing on the strong, discipline-based foundation at the Clear Water Bay campus, HKUST(GZ) will chart new territories in pedagogical approach through the implementation of a unique and non- conventional Hub structure incorporating the initially planned 16 cutting-edge Research Thrust Areas. This innovative model allows faculty and students to bridge diverse knowledge from multiple disciplines and explore new frontiers of cross-disciplinary research for discovering novel solutions to global problems. Four Academic Hubs – Function, Information, Systems, and Society – are established and designed to articulate and offer the necessary mechanism for delivering intended cross-disciplinary outcomes. While Function and Information are closely linked and provide the fundamentals to build Systems that supports Society, the Hubs are all interconnected and will complement the four academic pillars - Schools of Science, Engineering, Business and Management, and Humanities and Social Science established by the Clear Water Bay campus to achieve maximum synergy in education and research. This pioneering academic structure breaks down the disciplinary silos and fosters a new architecture of education and research model that is responsive and adaptive to ever-changing global trends. Many