Page 4 - Accelerating Research and Impact - Issue 7

1 ACCELERATING RESEARCH AND IMPACT
MESSAGE FROM THE VICE-PRESIDENT
This pandemic has been life-changing, prompting people to imagine unconventional solutions as they look out for one another. In this issue, we highlight how this spirit of care has shone at Lingnan, engendering innovations and initiatives that ultimately contribute to a better society.
While COVID-19 has physically separated us, it did not keep our teams at Lingnan Entrepreneurship Initiative from caring for people around them. Their conceptual work on a transparent mask for the hearing-impaired and an intelligence-assisted wheelchair control system for elderly caregivers recently earned them two Gold recognitions at the MUSE Design Awards. The transparent mask, which was also named 1st Runner Up at the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers’ Enginpreneurs Award 2021, allows the hearing-impaired to read lips and communicate with others in a world of face masks.
The University also achieved remarkable results in UGC’s Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2020, exceeding its previous assessment results. More than 50% of Lingnan scholars’ research outputs received either a 4-star (“world leading”) or a 3-star (“internationally excellent”) rating, while more than half of the impact cases scored either a 4-star (“outstanding impacts”) or a 3-star (“considerable impacts”) rating. All these achievements exemplify our commitment to advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the global peace and prosperity blueprint that essentially guides our research work.
We also signed a Letter of Intent on Collaboration and a Memorandum of Understanding with Shenzhen University to nurture talent for Greater Bay Area development, and have set up six joint research centres with universities in the Greater Bay Area.
Through our School of Graduate Studies, we have substantially expanded the postgraduate student population with new programmes in creative arts and creative industries, health and social care, smart cities and big data analytics, just to name a few.
We hope that these new plans can facilitate more innovative ideas that spark social impact and development. My warm wishes for good health go out to everyone reading this newsletter!
Prof Joshua Ka Ho MOK
Vice-President Lam Man Tsan Chair Professor of Comparative Policy Lingnan University, Hong Kong