Mix and Match Our strategy for teaching and learning – involving students in curriculum development and the adoption of transformative technologies – finds an echo in our research strategy, too. We are rewarding young talent through the HKU Research Fellowship Scheme for Clinical Academics, which has been enhanced to be more inclusive and allow for overseas research training. We are also making concerted efforts to break down barriers, especially between disciplines, and encouraging a bottom-up approach. In the spring, we piloted a series of mini retreats for Chairs and Directors of Departments and Schools to help cultivate more synergies for research collaborations between clinicians and scientists. Following from that, the School of Clinical Medicine launched its research mixers, which are open to staff across HKUMed. The mixers have a format: brief talks are given around a chosen theme, followed by informal discussions over lunch. The first mixer, held in June, was on that topic we are all talking about – AI and Big Data in Medicine – and the second was on cancer and personalised medicine. These gatherings encourage our scholars to share their ideas about complex issues and, we hope, consider how they can join together to answer them. Already, the mixers have made progress through the establishment of the Research Data Collaboration Task Force. This will guide the formation of a framework and ultimately a facility for big data collaboration that all researchers in the Faculty will be able to share, access and utilise. I have also used the Dean’s Fund to establish the HKUMed Collaboration Booster Fund to support a team science approach towards high-impact, innovative projects that have high translation potential. The emphasis on collaboration also finds tangible form in our ongoing efforts to develop biomedical engineering. We have received HK$28 million from the University Grants Committee to upgrade the Pauline Chan Building with dedicated facilities for biomedical engineering, such as a digital health lab, 3D printing lab and medical robotics lab. The work will be completed in the next academic year. We will also be working with the Faculties of Engineering and Dentistry to co-host the Biomedical International Symposium next June. Another promising development is the planned Greater Bay Area International Clinical Trial Institute, announced in the Policy Address of Hong Kong’s Chief Executive in October. HKUMed has cross-disciplinary expertise in clinical trials and associated networks in the GBA and Hong Kong, and we are most keen to contribute to this initiative. 12
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