Professor Freddy Boey
President and University Distinguished Professor
Professor Freddy Boey Yin Chiang is President and University Distinguished Professor of City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK).
As Provost of the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) from 2011-2017, Professor Boey propelled the University from 74th in the 2011 QS World University Rankings to 11th and No. 1 in Asia by 2017..
As Deputy President in the National University of Singapore (2018-2022), he transformed the University’s efforts in deep technology commercialisation, increasing the number of deep tech startups by 4X in the first three years, through the Graduate Research Innovation Program (GRIP), making it Singapore’s foremost deep tech start up program. This program has been designated a National Program in 2024.
Professor Boey was conferred Singapore’s highest Scientific Award, the President’s Science & Technology Medal for lifetime achievement, and the prestigious Imperial College London Faculty of Medicine Fellow award, both in 2013, for his biomedical research achievements. His research team also won the 2014 Singapore President’s Technology Award for using nanostructures with a novel drug delivery approach to combat blindness from glaucoma. As Provost of NTU, he built Singapore’s second Undergraduate Medical School, partnering with Imperial College London, for which he received the 2016 Singapore National Day Public Administration Gold Medal. He has also been conferred Honorary Doctorate from Loughborough University, and Honorary professorships from the University of Indonesia, Nanjing Postal and Telecom University and Nanjing Technological University.
On becoming President of CityUHK in May 2023, he championed a visionary international, innovative, and entrepreneurial academic environment. This has led CityUHK to be ranked the “Most International University in the World” by Times Higher Education for 2024 and 2025. CityUHK has also risen to the top 10 in Asia in 2025, by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) 2025.
In the past two years, Professor Boey established four research and two academic institutions to prepare CityUHK for the next few decades to come:
- the Academy of Innovation
- the Institute of Digital Medicine
- the Hong Kong Institute of AI for Science
- the Institute for Materials Innovation
- the College of Computing
- the College of Biomedicine
Professor Boey also led CityUHK to a landmark achievement with University of Cambridge, launching the one of the Cambridge University’s largest postdoctoral fellowship programme in Asia, as well as the CityUHK-Lucy Cavendish College Scholarships with Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, a first for Hong Kong. He has also led CityUHK to extensive international collaborations with top universities in Switzerland, UK, France, Belgium, Italy. He has also made deeper collaborations and student recruitments with the Belt and Road countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Hungary, Kazakhstan and Turkey.
To attract global talent, Professor Boey initiated the Distinguished Visiting Professors Scheme, which now boasts over 50 top professors Harvard University, MIT, UCLA, Cambridge University, Oxford University, Imperial College London, University College London, ETH Zurich, EPFL and the National University Singapore. He has also led intensive collaborative inroads into cities within mainland China.
Professor Boey brought his educational philosophy of being more learning centric (in contrast to conventional teaching centric) into CityUHK., sharing this in many interviews with major media outlets and at prominent international conferences. To enhance the global outlook of CityUHK’s student, he established Flagship Programs within each College and schools, enabling top students to experience staying months overseas in top institutions. All these has led CityUHK to receive the highest number of undergraduate applications among all Hong Kong universities in 2025.