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Four research projects led by The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) have been awarded over HK$220 million in total funding from the Research Grants Council (RGC) of the University Grants Committee (UGC) under the Areas of Excellence (AoE) Scheme and the Theme-based Research Scheme (TRS) 2025/26.

CUHK’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Sham Mai-har said: “We are thrilled to have two out of three AoE projects awarded to CUHK and have received the largest share of funding amount in this exercise. We also congratulate the other two research teams that have projects funded under the TRS. These projects span a wide array of aspects, including early childhood development, mental health, plant biotechnology and next-generation computing. As a leading institution in Asia, CUHK excels across different research domains, contributing significantly to global issues.”

The projects funded under the AoE Scheme include the “Centre for Plant Vacuole Biology and Biotechnology”, led by Professor Jiang Liwen, Associate Dean (Research) of the Faculty of Science and Choh-Ming Li Professor of Life Sciences at CUHK, which has been awarded over HK$75 million; and the project “Optimizing Early Childhood Development of Children from Low-Resource Settings by Leveraging Technology and Biological Data”, led by Professor Patrick Wong Chun-man, Associate Vice-President (Research) and Stanley Ho Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages at CUHK, which is considered a potentially ground-breaking and highly-original research, has received HK$10 million as an exploratory project with one-year budget to yield preliminary results. For summaries of the projects, please refer to website.

The projects funded under the TRS include the “Next Generation EDA”, led by Professor Young Fung-yu, Chairman and Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at CUHK, which has been awarded over HK$68.5 million; and the project “Sleep and Circadian Rhythm: Potential Window for Prevention of Mental Disorders in Adolescents”, led by Professor Wing Yun-kwok, Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Choh-Ming Li Professor of Psychiatry at CUHK, which has received over HK$67.6 million. For summaries of the projects, please refer to website.

The AoE Scheme aims to support UGC-funded universities in consolidating and enhancing Hong Kong’s existing strengths in research, and in developing them into areas of excellence, while the TRS aims to focus the research efforts of UGC-funded universities on themes of strategic importance to the long-term development of Hong Kong.