Calendar 2015–16

6 Part 1 • General Information Part 1 Research and Development CUHK fosters the development of high-quality research over a broad front in all its eight Faculties. It encourages academic staff to conduct research aimed at expanding the frontiers of knowledge, and also to undertake specific consultancy projects of community value and collaborative projects with industry. The University has also established a number of research institutes, providing the necessary financial support and research infrastructure. While encouraging both basic and applied research in all academic areas, the University also realizes that it is important to achieve excellence and global impact. As part of its Strategic Plan adopted in January 2006, the University identified Five Focused Areas of Research under its Focused Innovations Scheme (formally known as Focused Investments Scheme). These areas, selected with regard to the University’s overall strategy and specific opportunities for funding support, are Chinese Studies, Biomedical Sciences, Information Sciences, Economics and Finance, and Geoinformation and Earth Sciences. In the six University Grants Committee (UGC) ‘Areas of Excellence’ exercises, CUHK has secured significant support from the UGC in the areas of Plant and Agricultural Biotechnology; Chinese Medicine Research and Further Development; Centre for Research into Circulating Fetal Nucleic Acids; Historical Anthropology of Chinese Society; Institute of Network Coding; Centre for Organelle Biogenesis and Function; and Information Technology. Good progress is being made in all these research areas by dedicated, multidisciplinary teams. At the national level, five State Key Laboratories have also been established at CUHK. The State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China (CUHK), established in 2006, conducts research into the biology and early detection of cancers particularly prevalent in Asian populations, and seeks to develop novel therapeutics for their treatment. The State Key Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology (CUHK), established in 2008, studies ways of improving rice yields in China by improving the species of rice grown by Chinese farmers. Established in 2009, the State Key Laboratory of Phytochemistry and Plant Resources in West China (CUHK) conducts research into the modernization of traditional Chinese medicine and the application of biotechnology in medical science. The State Key Laboratory of Synthetic Chemistry, established in 2010, advances inter-disciplinary basic research. In July 2013, the State Key Laboratory of Digestive Disease was approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology with the aim of promoting research in digestive disease. About a quarter of the government’s annual allocation to the University in the form of block grants goes directly or indirectly to research. The University also relies heavily on different external funding sources to support research activities. The Research Grants Council (RGC) remains the major sponsor of research. In the 2014–15 grant application exercise, CUHK staff secured some HK$204 million in RGC competitive grant funding. The University’s high