HKUST Annual Report 2023-2024

18 Learning for Life In other doctoral recruitment and performance recognitions, the University offered 500 awards to outstanding new and current students through the HKUST Enhanced RedBird PhD Award. Recipients come from diverse backgrounds, including Belt and Road countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Cameroon, and Egypt. Fifty-five PhD students received an Overseas and Greater Bay Area Research Award to enrich their experience by conducting research at other leading universities, including Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, Southern University of Science and Technology, and the National University of Singapore. To assist students in need, bursaries and loans totaling HK$10 million were provided to those experiencing financial adversity, constraints, or unforeseen emergencies. Financial support offered to students facing difficulty in seeking mental healthcare doubled in 2023-24. In its second year, the dollar-for-dollar matching “Work-Study” On-Campus Internship Program continued to assist needy students, with distributed subsidies increasing from HK$300,000 to HK$500,000. Striding Ahead with Career Opportunities Job recruitment activities on campus fully returned to pre- COVID levels in 2023-24, bringing over 100 in-person recruitment talks and 460 companies to the two Career Mosaics held during the year. In addition to our long-term partnership employers, we welcomed many new participants, including BlackRock, COSCO-HIT Terminals, and the Hong Kong Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases. Around 10,000 students attended each job fair. 1,000+ Interns benefitting from the STEM Internship Scheme