Since its foundation, CityU has moved far and fast. In less than twenty years we have created a substantial research profile with an international reputation in a number of important areas of work, while our educational role has extended across the entire spectrum of awards from PhD to post-secondary qualifications.
Under our Strategic Plan for 1997 to 2002, the past five years have been a particularly fruitful period. We have brought to Hong Kong a group of world-class academics who are making a significant contribution to the scholarly life of the University and to the community. Our engineering and science departments have emerged as acknowledged leaders in the applied research that will underpin the development of regional industries. We have founded a School of Creative Media. In business, law, the social sciences and communications, we have been successful across a very broad front in executive education, language education, professional studies, and public policy, including the establishment of centres for teaching and research in accounting and corporate governance, cross-cultural studies, and Southeast Asian studies.
We have worked hard to put student learning at the centre of undergraduate education, and to create the administrative and academic foundation for a more open undergraduate curriculum. Particular emphasis has been given to improvement in English proficiency and to opportunities to study out-of-discipline, including studies in Chinese civilization. We have also achieved a marked improvement in the physical ambience for learning, in and out of the classroom, and our new student residences are coming to completion in phases.
While celebrating these accomplishments, we are aware that we have been working across a broad front. This breadth reflects the community's evolving aims for higher education and the energy of a young and ambitious institution. Having reached a point of relative maturity, we now have the opportunity to consolidate our efforts around established strengths and to focus on key goals.
The strengths of the University are concentrated along the axis that connects professional education and applied research. As professional boundaries and skills become fluid and the cross-fertilisation of ideas drawn from different disciplines emerges as a key source of creativity and progress, we must strengthen the linkages between our work with students and our research effort, and the synergies among disciplines.
We have further defined our position by a demonstrable ability to provide a wide range of students with the opportunity to excel, and by an increasing engagement with mainland China, especially the Pearl River Delta. As Hong Kong's integration with mainland China goes forward these strengths are becoming ever more relevant and timely.
As a university our planning horizon stretches beyond the short-term difficulties created by this process of integration. We are charged with providing education and intellectual capital to underpin development for decades to come. In our Strategic Plan for 1997-2002 we argued that as a university in this region we were "in the right place, at the right time, and in the right business". It is a claim worth making again. In the task of creating an internationally competitive, knowledge-based economy, no assets are more important to the community than its universities. Our strategic plan for the years to 2008 is about accepting this responsibility and challenge.
Goals for the next five years
- Consolidating our work around established strengths in education and research as the University and its community meet the challenge of change.
- Broadening and deepening the synergies and linkages among disciplines and professional specialisms, and between our work with students and our research.
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