Page 27 - Accelerating Research and Impact - Issue 7

KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER HIGHLIGHTS 24
Mrs Lam said that LU has a long history with an emphasis on liberal arts education and whole-person development of students. “I am pleased to note that LU attaches importance to the promotion of Chinese history and culture. The nation’s 14th Five-Year Plan approved in March this year has mentioned, for the first time, the support for Hong Kong to develop as a hub for arts and
cultural exchanges between China and the rest of the world. I believe that LU can leverage its own advantages to contribute to the promotion of cultural exchanges. I also encourage LU to seize the opportunities brought about by the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) to advance the university’s development and nurture more talents for the GBA," she added.
In 2010, Foxconn, which assembles phones for Apple Inc., had a spate of suicides in its Mainland factories. These not only attracted the attention of the press globally, but also persuaded Prof Pun and her research team to relocate from Beijing to the Pearl River Delta.
“A senior executive of Foxconn pointed out that Chinese workers commit suicide for the compensation of several hundred thousand yuan for their poor families, and that the company would no longer indemnify those who committed suicide. We were outraged at this. Not long after this announcement, a female worker jumped off a building and was paralysed. We wrote a lot of reports and put pressure on the government. In the end, Foxconn agreed to pay her 180,000 yuan, which is actually only a small amount of money,” said Prof Pun. After that Foxconn began to pay attention to improving the working conditions of its employees.
To Prof Pun, teaching is as important as research and Lingnan's emphasis on the balanced development of research and teaching was the main reason for which she wanted to join the University. “A liberal arts education attaches great importance to relationships with society and interaction with students, and I firmly believe that research and teaching are closely linked,” she said.
Recently, Prof Pun and a group of Lingnan students went to Tin Shui Wai to look at the difficulties and challenges of job-hunting and unemployment for young people. They visited a social enterprise called Tin Zi Zok Wai, which is formed by a group of immigrated women, and plan to promote its eco-village framework with “time-voucher” labour hours and a product redeeming system.
If research is not to solve problems, what is its purpose? I aim to give the results of my research to society.