Bulletin Spring‧Summer 1980

of the financial stringency which is afflicting univer- sities in all the industrialized countries. Third Problem The third problem, which is really part of the second, concerns the future of research and especially of scientific research on which technological progress nowadays depends. I think that most people would agree that pure research—and by that I mean research which is not being pursued to meet a specifically economic objective—is best carried out in association with a training function as it is in a university where there is a constant throughput of lively young transients who keep it alive by continually injecting fresh ideas. It is precisely this which is endangered by the locking up of university staff positions as a result of the over-rapid recruitment in the sixties which I have mentioned. This is one of the most dangerous features of the present situation as well as one of the saddest; morale is currently and understandably low among some of the most brilliant of our younger people whose hope of being able to establish themselves in research appear to have been frustrated. These would be difficult problems in any circumstances but today they are rendered the more intractable by the effects of world recession which are forcing a reduction in the money devoted by governments to higher education. Financial stringency coupled with an expected fall in the size of the European age groups coming up to 18 during the first half of the 1980's will effectively prevent our buying our way out by taking on supernumerary staff. I believe that the distribution between traditional university and vocational polytechnic training will have to move in favour of the latter, the necessary facilities being provided in Europe by the conversion of some of the less successful universities to polytechnics or similar training institutions and by the concentration of research into centres of excellence rather than having it an essential component of every department in every institution of higher education. Furthermore, we may have to introduce early retirement schemes on a substantial scale if we are to cope with the present unbalanced staffing structure in the new universities. Higher Education in Hong Kong In certain respects Hong Kong is favourably placed at a time like this. The upsurge in higher education came somewhat later here than in Europe and in relation to population the increases provided by The Chinese University and the Polytechnic were and are by no means excessive. As a result it seems to me that we are better placed than most to take advantage of our present situation and as we grow to provide appropriate higher education for our able young people. All that is needed is mutual understanding and real cooperation between the three institutions of higher education and between them and the schools. In a geographically restricted situation such as exists in Hong Kong this should surely be achievable. There is too an added dimension to the higher education scene in Hong Kong because of its proximity to the People's Republic of China. I need not tell you what a remarkable change has occurred in China's external relations and how Hong Kong has become perhaps the most important link between China and the Western World. I had the privilege of visiting China in October 1979 at the invitation of the President of the Academia Sinica with which the Royal Society, of which I am President, has maintained good relations for many years. I was able to visit a number of scientific research institutes of the Academy in Peking and Shanghai and also two universities in Hangchow and Canton. Anyone who visits China in this way is bound to be struck by the immense damage done to higher education in that country by the anti-intellectualism of the so-called cultural revolution and especially, perhaps, to science and technology. Anyone who calls for a moratorium on science should go to China and see for themselves the devastating effect it would have. Both the government and the people of China realize how badly they have fallen behind, and they are determined to catch up again with a world which has been progressing very rapidly, and not least in technology, during the past 10 to 15 years. But they cannot do it without outside help and here is a unique opportunity for Hong Kong and especially for The Chinese University. For through it and its graduates——all themselves a part of China, its language and its culture——it can and indeed must build a bridge between a backward China and the world outside. I believe there is here not just an opportunity but a duty for the University. Some years ago I addressed the members of the University here in the early days of its development in Shatin and I predicted that the time would surely come when contact with the People's Republic of China would become freely possible. I said then and I say so with even more conviction today that this offers a great opportunity for conciliation and cooperation for the benefit of the Chinese people and of the whole world. Here in The Chinese University of Hong Kong we must seize that opportunity; failure to do so would be to fail our founders and to deny the vision of our first Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Choh-Ming Li. 13