Lingnan University secures RGC funding for 49 research projects Early-career scholars lead the way as data science and interdisciplinary projects rise by 45%

Lingnan University has secured grants for 49 research projects in the 2026/27 competitive funding rounds of the Research Grants Council (RGC), which includes the General Research Fund (GRF), the Early Career Scheme (ECS), and the Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship Scheme (HSSPFS), with total awarded funding approaching HK$27 million.

Of these, 48 projects are supported under the GRF and ECS schemes, marking a record high for Lingnan. Funding secured under the ECS scheme alone has increased by nearly 30 per cent year-on-year, underscoring the strong research capability and academic excellence of Lingnan’s early-career scholars.

Prof S. Joe Qin, President and Wai Kee Kau Chair Professor of Data Science of Lingnan University, delighted by the results, said “This year, research projects from the School of Data Science and Wu Jieh Yee School of Interdisciplinary Studies recorded an increase of nearly 45 per cent year-on-year, with the majority led by our early-career scholars. Particularly encouraging is that among this year's funded projects, eight colleagues and I have each secured RGC funding for two consecutive years, while another scholar has secured funding for four consecutive years. These achievements show the strong competitiveness of Lingnan’s academic staff, and the University will continue to pursue academic excellence and actively lead cutting-edge research in innovation and sustainability, translating research outcomes into tangible benefits for society.”

Highlights of Lingnan University’s funded projects include:

In this year's exercise, ten projects each received funding exceeding HK$800,000, including one led by President S. Joe Qin entitled “Long-term Error Augmented Predictive (LEAP) Learning with Transformers for Smart Building Cooling Load Predictions”.

Two further projects received funding exceeding HK$1 million: “Trustworthy Stablecoins: Coordinating Centralised and Decentralised Finance at Scale”, led by Prof Alexandru-Codru Preda, Professor of the Department of Sociology and Social Policy; and “Unravelling the Genomic Basis of Coral-Eating Phestilla Nudibranchs: Host Selection and Climate Resilience”, led by Prof Jack Ip Chi-Ho, Assistant Professor (Presidential Early Career Scholar) of the Division of Science.

Lingnan also secured a substantial grant in the “Computing Science and Information Technology” subject discipline under the GRF scheme, led by Prof Xin Yao, Vice-President (Research and Innovation) and Tong Tin Sun Chair Professor of Machine Learning, for the project entitled “Co-evolving more generalisable Parallel Algorithm portfolios with Limited training instances (CoPAL)”, which proposes new approaches to improving artificial intelligence learning performance using limited data.

Over 70 per cent rated as high-quality research

According to the RGC assessment criteria, projects scoring 4.5 or above are classified as high quality. Of the 49 funded projects awarded to Lingnan University this year, 35 (71 per cent) achieved this benchmark.

Outstanding performance under the ECS

Lingnan achieved the highest success rate of the eight UGC-funded universities in the fields of Psychology and Linguistics, as well as in Physical Sciences. In Electrical and Electronic Engineering, the University ranked second in Hong Kong in terms of application success rate and total funding (Table 1).

Strong results under the GRF

In the “Computing Science and Information Technology” subject discipline, Lingnan recorded a success rate of 33.3 per cent above the sector average across the eight UGC-funded universities, and in Physical Sciences a 50 per cent success rate, coming second in Hong Kong (Table 2).

Table 1. Application success rate for ECS

Table 2. Application success rate for GRF