A new video series "Beyond Boundaries: Dialogue with Presidents of World’s Leading Educational Institutions" has been launched. In these videos, I discuss contemporary education issues and challenges from a global perspective with presidents of renowned universities who have visited CityU from South Africa, India, Germany, Japan and mainland China, plus a secondary school head from Hong Kong. Check out these dialogues on our video channel or YouTube.

I hope these programmes will offer you some intellectual inspiration for the new Spring, a vibrant time of year full of excitement and anticipation. Also, with the start of the Year of the Tiger in full gear, we are launching more initiatives that exemplify our dynamism and strengths in teaching and research.

On 18 March, we took great pride in holding an inauguration ceremony for University Day (U-Day). This event, which will be held on the third Friday of March each year, will help to promote our latest news and achievements. At the ceremony, we also unveiled another new development: our eye-catching University Mascot. Inspired by the wise, vital, vigorous, strong and pro-active characteristics of the amazing tiger, our mascot is a quintessential symbol of CityU’s pursuit of excellence in professional education and research, and a manifestation of our distinctive brand.

Prior to U-day 2022, a rich array of support activities was rolled out: the alumni Homecoming; groundbreaking for the Student Hostel project at Whitehead, Ma On Shan; a popular science lecture;  a HK Tech 300 workshop, and others. In particular, on 13 March, I had the pleasure of sharing recent endeavours with alumni during a Zoom gathering during the previously mentioned Homecoming. I took this opportunity to chat about my many fond memories with alumni who have offered such tremendous support over the years. Your pursuit of excellence embodies the CityU spirit.

As I emphasised during the Homecoming meeting, our continued success depends on our innovative approach to integrating teaching and research. Cultivating future leaders for our fast-changing, globalised world is the key to accomplishing our mission to be a world-class university. Initiatives such as HK Tech Tiger and HK Tech 300 continue to spotlight our commitment to nurturing leadership.

Proceeding hand-in-hand with student development is the top-notch research output generated by our faculty. In response to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve stepped up research collaborations under the One Health paradigm through partnerships with Prenetics, a major global diagnostics and genetic testing company offering large-scale COVID-19 testing for small mammals; the development of an innovative human-machine interface that has the potential to teleoperate robots conducting COVID-19 swab tests; and a study of the correlation between weather conditions and COVID-19 fatality rates; to name but a few.

CityU’s world-class faculty and excellent research successes were reaffirmed earlier this year when we are ranked seventh among the world's top young universities according to the Nature Index 2021 Young Universities, issued by the leading academic publisher Springer Nature. I am confident that this united effort by the CityU community will help us to continue to thrive as a young and booming higher education institution.

Last but not least, I hope you enjoy part 2 of our University Anthem, which debuted recently. Part 2, titled “Knowledge and Wisdom” adopts the same score as part 1, which is titled “Beyond Boundaries”. I hope very much that the new lyrics that I wrote for part 2 succeed in encapsulating our aspirations to integrate teaching and research, and our determination to stay focused on education.   

Best wishes to you all in these challenging times, and please stay healthy!

Way Kuo
President and University Distinguished Professor