Higher Educations’ role in promoting sustainability: the Lingnan University case study
Higher Educations’ role in promoting sustainability:
the Lingnan University case study
Prof Chen Xi, Chair Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and Dean of School of Interdisciplinary Studies, Lingnan University
After a networking lunch, QS Higher Education Post-Summit: APAC 2024 participants reconvened in the Chan Tak Tai Auditorium for the afternoon sessions. These kicked off with a highly illuminating keynote speech, titled ‘Higher Education for Sustainability’, delivered by Professor Chen Xi, Chair Professor, and Dean, of the School of Interdisciplinary Studies (SIS) at Lingnan, and one of the world’s leading scholars in the fields of engineering science and carbon neutrality.
In his address, Prof Chen set out his vision of the vital role universities can play in driving sustainable solutions to a range of problems. He began by listing the four main areas in which higher education can engage with the concept of sustainability: in its academic programs, research initiatives, campus operations, and community initiatives. To illustrate how this engagement works in practice, he drew on various highlights undertaken by Lingnan University’s faculty and students.
Prof Xin Yao, Vice President (Research and Innovation) and Tong Tin Sun Chair Professor of Machine Learning, Lingnan University (Right)
Academic Programs
“In terms of academic programs, some highlights include our interdisciplinary sustainability curricula, innovative teaching methods, and partnerships and opportunities,” he said.
Curricula development at Lingnan takes the form of new sustainability-focused programs, at all levels, and the integration of sustainability into existing programs. Among the university’s new offerings, Prof Chen cited the MS Program in Cross-disciplinary Technologies (+ practice). This is currently the only such interdisciplinary technologies master’s program offered in Hong Kong, or on the Mainland, he said. Students can choose from eight, very varied, concentrations, including those in Carbon Neutralization and Sustainability, and International e-Business.
Prof Chen picked out two highlights from the program’s core curriculum: the Field Trip and the Capstone Project Design. “In the Field Trip, students will visit leading manufacturing companies in the Greater Bay Area, learn what the companies need and try to solve the practical problems of the company.”
While for their Capstone Project Design, module students will develop their own technology initiative and then try to convince a company to use or acquire it.
A range of professional elective courses are also offered to the master’s students. One example is the ‘Conventional energy and new energy’ course, which examines the pros and cons of both forms of energy in differing circumstances.
Prof Chen explained that all Lingnan’s programs in the sustainability field use innovative teaching methods based on experiential, project-based, and technology-enhanced learning. As an example of project-based learning, he outlined a clever enhancement to sustainable green rooftops devised, jointly, by students from Lingnan and Peking University Yuanpei College via summer academy. This type of inter-institutional collaboration, nationally and internationally, along with partnerships with industry, and collaborations with government and NGO bodies, are key elements of Lingnan’s approach.
Research Initiatives
In Prof. Chen’s view, sustainability research areas can be grouped into the five categories of climate change and carbon neutrality, sustainable environment, green industry and infrastructure, environmental policy and governance, and interdisciplinary approach.
“But to enable all this sustainability research we have to recognise the fact we need infrastructure,” Prof Chen explained. This infrastructure ranges from interdisciplinary laboratories and centres, to data centres and computational facilities, to multiple-university field research stations and mega-infrastructure.
As a case study for the latter category, he pointed to the National major scientific and technological infrastructure (Science Mega-Infrastructure) for carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration (CCUS), which was designed by a team led by Prof Chen and currently seeking opportunity to be established in the Greater Bay Area,. Among the key challenges researchers need to overcome is finding ways to capture carbon from a wide range of sources, and identifying how the captured carbon dioxide can be turned into something useful. The ambitious long-term goal is to integrate the carbon, energy and water cycles, from a multi-dimensional and multi-physics and chemistry perspective.
Along with access to government funding and private sector support, the establishment of global research networks, and international research mobility and exchange programs, are also essential for the success of many projects. Thankfully, despite political difficulties, climate change is one of the few issues on which China and the US are still seeking to collaborate. Lingnan faculty Professor Li Jia has for quite a few occasions represented the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology in discussions with the US Department of Energy.
Prof Chen went on to look at some of the future directions for research, highlighting work on the development of artificial intelligence for sustainability, and tackling the bottlenecks that have arisen in the development of energy storage, CCUS and direct air capture, technologies.
He picked out three case studies aiming to tackle these bottlenecks: a grid energy storage project in Shandong, for which Prof Chen’s team designed its all-vanadium liquid flow battery; a high-capacity, solid state battery project led by SIS associate dean Professor Xiang Yong; and, lastly, the world’s largest CCUS project at a steel plant in Shandong, led by Prof Chen.
Campus Operations
Prof Chen divided on-campus energy management and energy efficiency solutions into three categories: renewable energy integration, including rooftop solar panels and small-scale wind turbines; energy storage solutions, such as battery storage solutions, and smart grid and microgrid implementation.
In the category of green building and campus design, Prof Chen identified a number of building envelope improvements, such as green and cool roofs, and also upgrades to appliance efficiency, for example by LED lighting refits. Alongside comprehensive recycling and e-waste management programs, water conservation and management solutions can take many forms, he said, including rainwater collection and waterless urinals.
“Electric vehicles are very important and we also want to encourage car-sharing,” he added.
Community Engagement
“We need to make the public aware of what we’re doing,” Prof Chen explained.
He said that the public needed to be engaged through community sustainability initiatives. He cited education and awareness programs, collaborative research and action projects, service-learning and volunteerism work, and technology transfer and innovation support processes, as particular ways in which this goal could be achieved. “We can break down the traditional walls around our universities.”
As one example in the service-learning and volunteerism category, he spotlighted the Lingnan Entreprenuership Initiative’s air purifier project as a particularly noteworthy case study. This compact, low-cost humanitarian technology was developed by Lingnan students to improve the living conditions of economically deprived people in Hong Kong, and across the globe, who are housed in cramped and poorly ventilated homes. The student’s air purifier swept the world’s four most prestigious product design awards in 2024.
Follow his keynote, Prof Chen was joined on stage by Professor Xin Yao, Lingnan University’s Vice President (Research and Innovation) and its Tong Tin Sun Chair Professor of Machine Learning, who moderated a Q & A session with the audience.
