University Review
Engaging the community
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Striving for public health
The Chinese Medicine Hospital of Hong Kong progressing towards service launch in 2025
The Chinese Medicine Hospital of Hong Kong (CMHHK) is steadily progressing towards its goal of phased service launch by end-2025. Since January 2024, CMHHK has entered the phase II commissioning period, focusing on critical aspects, including the planning of medical services, infrastructure arrangements, and staffing. Appointment of members of the core management team (CMT) was also announced on 24 January 2024.
CMT has been diligently advancing CMHHK’s commissioning work. Under the leadership of CMHHK’s Board of Directors, the CMT has developed an annual planning mechanism and drafted its first annual plan, focusing on the provision of high-quality, patient-centred medical services. Additionally, the organisational structure and key policies, including those related to human resources, financial management, procurement, information technology security and privacy policy statements, have been established.
CMHHK is collaborating closely with the Government to establish a reliable information technology infrastructure and system, ensuring timely service deployment. Concurrently, CMHHK is forming its clinical teams that include Chinese medicine, Western medicine, allied health professionals, nursing, Chinese medicine pharmacy and Western medicine pharmacy, to jointly develop pure Chinese medicine services, services with Chinese medicine playing a predominant role, and integrated Chinese-Western medicine services. Furthermore, a non-clinical support team is established to provide comprehensive assistance for service development.
Since April 2024, CMHHK has held multiple working meetings with The Chinese University of Hong Kong, The University of Hong Kong, and Hong Kong Baptist University, aiming to establish collaborations in Chinese medicine training, clinical services and research. Additionally, CMHHK has been discussing possible collaborations with the Chinese Medicine Clinics cum Training and Research Centres operated under a tripartite collaboration model involving the Hospital Authority, non-governmental organisations, and local universities, with the aim of promoting the development of services, training and research in Chinese medicine. On 24 January 2024, CMHHK signed a strategic collaboration agreement with Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine (GPHTCM) with an aim to enhance expert exchange, research, and service development, thereby strengthening cooperation between Mainland, Hong Kong and international Chinese medicine institutions. CMT visited GPHTCM twice in March and April 2024, to gain in-depth insights into the management of Chinese medicine clinical services, nursing, pharmacy, as well as research in herb-drug interactions and its application in clinical services.
The CMT, under the guidance of the Board of Directors, will continue to work diligently with the Government and universities. They will closely monitor the progress of the establishment of CMHHK, with the aim of providing high-quality Chinese medicine healthcare services and establishing a comprehensive research and teaching base for academia and industry in the near future.
Strengthening ties with the community
New I&T teaching kits promote STEAM education
To support the launch of the “Science (S1-3) STEAM Learning Module” by the Education Bureau (EDB) in the 2023-24 academic year, the Department of Physics collaborated with EDB to design and produce six sets of teaching kits for the innovative technology learning module. The kits include teaching materials that can be 3D printed and assembled by teachers themselves, teaching videos and slides to assist teachers in delivering junior secondary school’s science curriculum and enhance students’ problem-solving and innovation skills.
Exploring gender issues through art exhibitions
For the second year in a row, the Academy of Visual Arts (AVA) was selected as one of the university partners of Art Basel Hong Kong. Alongside a representative booth at an exhibition held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in March 2024, AVA organised a parallel exhibition at the Kai Tak Campus, featuring the creative works of six AVA scholars, alumna and students. Titled “Ink Subversion: Through Gender Lenses”, both the HKBU exhibition and the booth of Art Basel Hong Kong aim to explore how we can subvert tradition with tradition, what happens when ink meets gender, and how we can intervene in the tradition of Chinese ink art through the lenses of gender.
Tackling global sustainable development challenges through AI competition
HKBU hosted the “AI x HK OpenCup” competition with the Hong Kong Society of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for the second consecutive year. Youngsters were encouraged to address sustainability challenges facing Hong Kong collaboratively with creativity and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The event attracted participation from 94 teams, comprising over 370 students from the Secondary and Tertiary Students Categories.
Serving society through HKBU Community Service Day
Organised by the Leadership Qualities Centre of the Office of Student Affairs, the HKBU Community Service Day was held in April 2024 with the theme “Serve Tour-gather” to encourage students to serve the community and build a harmonious society. Over 230 beneficiaries from seven non-governmental organisations and 60 HKBU students participated in the event. HKBU student volunteers designed and led a series of activities, including campus tours, workshops and five guided city tours, enabling participants to immerse themselves in the dynamic culture of Hong Kong and the vibrancy of the HKBU campus, and strengthening the University’s community relations.
Promoting care for elderly and cross-generational integration
In 2023-24, over 60 HKBU students and elderly volunteers formed cross-generational “Buddy Teams” in the “Community Engagement Organisers: Positive Ageing Learners Programme” organised by the Leadership Qualities Centre of the Office of Student Affairs and the Providence Foundation to provide care and services to more than 130 elderly in the Wong Tai Sin community. The teams offered regular visits to the frail elderly, social activity accompaniment, and home environment improvements, resulting in over 80 completed home improvement projects, including cleaning and applying anti-slip coatings to the bathroom floors of the residential units, refurbishing furniture, and purchasing household appliances.
Demonstrating creativity and understanding historical landmarks through videos
The Department of History partnered with “Walk in Hong Kong”, an organisation providing in-depth local tours, with the support of the Office of Student Affairs, to provide a service-learning experience for 60 HKBU students enrolled in the General Education course “Historic Landmarks, Heritage and Community”. Students were tasked to produce six videos in groups for the Kowloon City guided tours, featuring respectively the history and significance of six major landmarks in the district, including Stone Houses Family Garden, Hau Wong Temple, Kowloon Walled City, Guangzhou Veranda, Sung Wong Toi and Sheung Tai Temple. The campaign aimed to deepen students’ understanding of Hong Kong’s important historical landmarks and their precious cultural significance.
Serving local communities in Sri Lanka and Thailand
Thirty HKBU students joined the “Serve-cation 2023-24” programme organised by the Leadership Qualities Centre of the Office of Student Affairs to serve the local communities in Sri Lanka and Thailand. The students participated in the Sri Lanka Eco & Service Tour to visit a pre-school, conduct interviews with beach-cleaning workers and serve a total of 100 beneficiaries. Meanwhile, another group of student volunteers ventured to Thailand, where they visited a village school in Lamphun to construct an adventure park, offer voluntary teaching sessions to over 70 local students, and engage with residents.
Connecting with the HKBU community
Reinforcing the alumni network
As of June 2024, HKBU has nurtured more than 158,000 alumni. A wide range of activities were organised throughout the year to strengthen the ties between the University and alumni. Themed “Brighten Up”, Homecoming 2023 was organised with the belief that alumni could once again physically reconnect with their alma mater post-pandemic, heralding a bright and promising future. Five major events, namely the Alumni Investiture Ceremony, Grand Reunion Dinner, Campus Tour, Alumni Soccer Seven and the second Worldwide HKBU Communication Alumni Conference, were attended by more than 750 alumni.
To reinforce the alumni network in Mainland China, particularly in the Greater Bay Area (GBA), an alumni networking event, titled “BU Alumni Ensemble in the GBA – Leaping Forward: Art-tech and Scientific Research”, took place in Shenzhen, attracting 270 alumni. The event included a students’ sharing session, where participants from HKBU’s transdisciplinary programmes shared their study journey and the benefits they gained from the programmes.
A new alumni sharing video series titled “Our Splendid Life” was produced to capture the life journey and success stories of alumni. The video series was launched progressively, with the first video generating more than 365,000 views across social media platforms.
Steadfast support from the community
Thanks to the enormous support received from the community and donors, and despite the global and local economic downturn, the University has achieved another year of outstanding results in its fundraising endeavours. From July 2023 to June 2024, the University raised a total of more than HK$303 million in donations and in addition secured HK$6.77 million in research matching grants. These valuable resources enable the University to forge ahead with its strategic developments, fostering innovation and giving back to society, particularly for the construction of the Jockey Club Campus of Creativity, promotion of cutting-edge and transdisciplinary research, the establishment of endowed professorships, support for student exchange programmes, and the launch of a variety of additional initiatives that create a positive social impact for society.
The University is deeply grateful to the following supporters for their generous contributions during the reporting year:
