Materials science projects bring home the bacon

CityU researchers have scored almost one third of the total funding approved for the NSFC-RGC Joint Research Scheme 2003-04.

 

Professor Paul Chu, Professor Haydn Chen, Professor Lau Tai-chu and Professor Y C Chan, all from the Faculty of Science and Engineering (FSE), received four out of the five awards in the New Materials Science category. Dr Zhou Nan of the Department of Marketing, won the only award in the Management Science category. The five successful CityU bids, which amount to HK$ 2,857,200, account for more than 28% of the total HK$ 10 million RGC funding allocated to the Scheme. CityU's performance ranks seco

nd among the local universities(see charts).

 

Co-sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and the Research Grants Council (RGC), the scheme aims to promote collaboration between researchers in the mainland and Hong Kong. NSFC and RGC contribute an annual sum of RMB 5million and HK$ 10 million, respectively, to research projects in which the existing strengths of both the mainland and Hong Kong researchers complement each other to a significant extent. The priority areas under the Scheme are Information Technology; Life Science; New Materials Science; Marine and Environmental Science; Chinese Medicine; and Management Science. CityU academics have done exceptionally well in the New Materials section, gaining more than 80% of the RGC funding. The projects proposed by three of the FSE researchers, Professor Chu, Professor Chen and Professor Lau, which secured more than HK$650,000 each, are three top-funded bids out of a total of 18.

 

Materials science is also the theme of the second CityU Technology Transfer Forum, — " Advances in Surface Coating and Testing ", — to be held at the Hong Kong Productivity Council at 3 p.m., 21 November. Professor Chen, Head of the Department of Physics and Materials Science (AP), will talk about how his research on functional ceramic coatings could be applied to the future IT industry.

Four other CityU academics who will contribute to the topic: Dr Jonathan Chung and Dr S G Lu, both from AP, and Dr Lawrence Li and Dr Z F Zhou, from the Department of Manufacturing Engineering and Engineering Management.

 

The forum is organized by the Technology Transfer Office (TTO) to showcase new applied research works by CityU academics, with added focus on how their innovative projects add value to related industries. Upcoming TTO forums to be held early next year will feature CityU applied research works on building and construction technology, and multimedia and information technology.