The Hong Kong government has pledged to provide HK$20 billion (£1.9 billion) of new competitive funding for university research – double the amount it had promised to provide last year.
Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, chief executive of Hong Kong, announced the new investment in the Research Endowment Fund in a policy address earlier this month. She said that she had decided to accept in full the recommendations made by Tsui Lap-chee, chairman of a task force that completed a review on research funding and policies last month, according to the South China Morning Post.
The government promised in last year’s policy address to provide no less than HK$10 billion in funding for university research after completion of the task force’s review, the paper added.
The new injection swells the fund to HK$46 billion. The Research Endowment Fund is the main form of funding for academic research in the eight institutions that are funded by Hong Kong’s University Grants Committee.
