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The Institute of Space and Earth Science (ISEIS) of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) celebrated its 10th anniversary recently. Officiating guests were Prof. Michael HUI, Pro-Vice-Chancellor of CUHK, Prof. XU Guanhua, former minister at the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China (MOST), and Prof. LI Lu, Director General of Education, Science and Technology Department, Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.  Over 200 ISEIS staff and students as well as guests from local and overseas institutions attended the ceremony. 

ISEIS was established in 2005. Developed on a base established by  the Joint Laboratory for Geoinformation Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and CUHK, ISEIS is now an interdisciplinary and inter-faculty research unit with researchers from the Faculties of Engineering, Science, and Social Science.  ISEIS is also the Hong Kong Base of the National Remote Sensing Center of China of MOST. It serves as the Hong Kong Contact Point of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) for the Satellite Remote Sensing, Geographic Information System, and Satellite Nevigation Working Group.  ISEIS became the only Asian member of the Universities Space Research Association (USRA), an international university union on space science researches.　The research focuses of ISEIS include a satellite-terrestrial sensor network for global and regional environmental monitoring and big data analysis and simulation, tropical and sub-tropical environmental change monitoring and disaster risk assessment, and urban infrastructure health diagnosis and early warning. 

During its first phase (2005-2010), ISEIS was sponsored by MOST and the Innovation Technologies Commission of the Hong Kong SAR government (ITC) to build the Hong Kong Satellite Remote Sensing Station, a part of the national earth observation infrastructure. At the same time, ISEIS conducted a series of remote sensing related research projects from ground based to airborne and space borne based ones. Over the past five years, ISEIS researchers have taken leadership roles in key national and international remote sensing programmes such as ‘973’ key basic research on global climate change and the Sino-Europe ‘Dragon Program’ on the Tibet Plateau glacial mapping and lake dynamics.  ISEIS also initiated and participated in the ‘cross-boundary environmental security’ research project jointly sponsored by MOST, Guangdong Provincial government and ITC.  The ISEIS research team and students have received many honors and awards at university, national and international levels. They have also been invited to participate in international consultancy and training programs on United Nations Asia and Pacific Regional disaster risk assessment.