HKUST Annual Report 2021-2022

$1,082.8M External Funding Totaling Granted to 1,743 Projects 21 HKUST Annual Report 2021-2022 The University’s Collaborative Research Fund (CRF) applications across diverse fields resulted in five HKUST-led projects being awarded a total of $31.32 million. Three of the studies will respectively look into enhancement of diabetes treatment and cost reductions, water infrastructure improvements in the Greater Bay Area, and acceleration of recovery after a central nervous system injury, for example, to the spinal cord. Another will extend the scope of the University’s Biological Cryo-EM Center to cryo-electron tomography studies to assist researchers in structural biology and structure-based drug development. The fifth, supported by funding from the second-round of the CRF’s COVID-19 and novel infectious diseases scheme, will enable HKUST researchers to tackle the challenge of shortages of personal protective equipment (such as face masks) and inefficiencies in the allocation of raw materials (such as meltblown nonwoven fabric) during a pandemic. In addition, an HKUST-led proposal signed by the eight UGC-funded universities recommended regularization of a separate one-off COVID-19 funding scheme into a research fund tackling societal challenges. The proposal was endorsed by the RGC in December 2021. This resulted in the establishment of the new Strategic Topics Grant fund, set to be launched in August 2022, with $150 million being earmarked. Further recognition of HKUST researchers’ ability to make a difference brought funding of $6.86 million for a Research Impact Fund project led by Prof. YEUNG Dit- Yan (Computer Science and Engineering). The project will develop spatiotemporal graph neural networks (GNNs) for trend forecasting, leveraging new machine learning techniques. This will include working with the Hong Kong Observatory and Hongkong Electric Company to develop models for forecasting the weather and electricity power loads. Innovation and Technology Commission The Hong Kong government’s Innovation and Technology Commission (ITC) also provides invaluable funding support for HKUST research, awarding a total of $141 million for 34 applied projects in 2021-22. Among the research proposals funded, a platform project led by Prof. Alexis LAU (Environment and Sustainability/ Civil and Environmental Engineering) was granted $18.03 million to establish a world-class volatile organic compounds (VOCs) laboratory at HKUST.