CUHK
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The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) held the inauguration ceremony for its Shanghai Centre in Yangpu District, Shanghai on August 28. At the ceremony, representatives of CUHK and the Yangpu District Government signed a strategic collaboration framework agreement and unveiled the Shanghai base of CUHK InnoPort, marking the further strengthening of the University’s foothold in mainland China with the establishment of facilities to drive innovation and technology collaborations in one of the major cities in the country. Ms Xie Dong, Vice Major of Shanghai, Professor Rocky S. Tuan, Vice-Chancellor and President of CUHK, Mr Xue Kan, Communist Party Secretary of the Yangpu District, Mr Zhou Haiying, Director of the Yangpu District, as well as esteemed representatives of the Shanghai Municipal Government, the Yangpu District Government, CUHK’s senior management team, partner universities in Shanghai and CUHK’s alumni community in the Yangtze River Delta region attended the ceremony to express their sincere congratulations for the establishment of the CUHK Shanghai Centre and warm wishes for the new development of Shanghai-Hong Kong cooperation.

Professor Rocky S. Tuan, Vice-Chancellor and President of CUHK, remarked, “The establishment of the CUHK Shanghai Centre is one of the key strategic developments for CUHK in the mainland. In addition to harnessing the plentiful opportunities presented by national progress, CUHK is committed to supporting the development of the Yangtze River Delta region. We aspire to nurture innovative professionals and promote collaborations on scientific and technological innovation and academic exchange. This year marks the 60^th anniversary of CUHK. The opening of the Shanghai Centre represents the successful achievement of a significant milestone in the implementation of the University’s latest strategic plan. The Centre is set to be a liaison hub of CUHK in the region to strengthen our engagements, support alumni activities and foster our collaborations with strategic partners in the mainland. It is the exact realisation of what it means by ‘recruiting talents from all parts of the country and scaling new heights on both sides of the River’.”

A leading comprehensive research university with a strong academic and scientific research background, CUHK prides itself on being a place where great minds shine. Among its faculty include Nobel Prize, Fields Medal and Turing Award-winning professors. The University comes first in Hong Kong in the ranking of the most innovative universities in the Asia-Pacific region. Four CUHK-bred startups have developed into unicorns. To further integrate into the economic and educational development of our country, CUHK proposed a specific plan to establish a centre in Shanghai to tap into the rich resources and take advantage of the policies, capital, facilitation measures for clinical trials, markets, and talents available in the city.

The CUHK Shanghai Centre will serve as a teaching location for CUHK courses in the mainland, offering postgraduate programmes jointly developed by Shanghai National Accounting Institute and Fanhai International School of Finance of Fudan University. It will also be a gathering point for CUHK students and alumni to engage in social exchanges, entrepreneurial ventures, internships, professional training, and academic activities; carry out collaborative projects with strategic partners in the Yangtze River Delta (including Fudan University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Zhejiang University, and Nanjing University); support CUHK’s interdisciplinary research teams to strengthen their partnerships with research institutes in Shanghai and the Yangtze River Delta region to foster joint interdisciplinary research and knowledge transfer.

The signing of the “Shanghai Yangpu District People’s Government–The Chinese University of Hong Kong Strategic Collaboration Framework Agreement” has signaled the intention of CUHK and the Yangpu District to take their important partnership to the next level. The Agreement will guide both parties to fully utilise the CUHK Shanghai Centre as a platform to collectively contribute to the overall development of the country, explore new opportunities for technological innovation, and cultivate world-class talents, so that the Centre will distinguish itself as a benchmark model of university-district cooperation in the Yangtze River Delta region or even across the country.

The unveiling ceremony of the Shanghai base of CUHK InnoPort (Innoport@Shanghai) took place on the same day. It is worth mentioning that the newly opened Shanghai base is jointly established by the Yangpu District and the University. It will serve as an incubation platform for the CUHK Shanghai Centre, providing one-stop support services for the translation and commercialisation of scientific research outcomes in Shanghai. CUHK’s strong connection with research experts and entrepreneur networks, together with the abundant support policies, services and guidance for innovation and entrepreneurship provided by the Yangpu District, will propel the Shanghai base into a high-quality incubator in Shanghai.

Capitalising on its strengths in research in various disciplines including genetics, genomics, precision medicine, information and automation technology, CUHK will focus on key industries such as artificial intelligence, life and health, digital economy, and intelligent manufacturing in the Yangpu District. It will identify suitable hard and core technology projects from award-winning researches, and take such outstanding scientific research achievements to Shanghai, while fostering regional collaborations to yield more fruitful outcomes.

These projects will first land in the makerspace in the North Building of the Shanghai Penta Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute in the Yangpu District, Shanghai. With deepened collaboration between the University and industry, through co-establishing new innovation consortiums and other measures, translational scientific research outcomes will be commercialised, demonstrating how the “research–incubation–commercialisation” continuum can be achieved.

Following the establishment of the CUHK Hong Kong-Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Research Institute (Futian) in Shenzhen in March and that of the CUHK Beijing Centre in June, the establishment of the Shanghai Centre is the third important strategic development of CUHK in the mainland this year. Upholding its determination to actively integrate into the overall development of the country, CUHK has been steadily advancing its strategies to strengthen its presence in the mainland.