CUHK chief urges more funds for campuses in Northern Metropolis university town

The leader of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) has called for greater financial support to develop a proposed 300-hectare (741 acres) university town near the border with mainland China, including funding for local institutions to build campuses, arguing that expansion will help navigate future challenges.

In a wide-ranging interview with the South China Morning Post, CUHK president Dennis Lo Yuk-ming said Hong Kong universities needed to expand their presence in the Northern Metropolis university town, where institutions could gain significant advantages and make a greater impact.

Lo, a globally renowned scientist and molecular geneticist who studied at two leading UK universities, Oxford and Cambridge, said Hong Kong institutions’ main weakness was their small size and limited scale.

“If we compare ourselves to international competitors, our weakness is size and scale, as city university campuses are relatively small. Our universities are like boutique hotels,” he said, explaining that the institutions were excellent but had limited capacity.

He added that world university rankings were constrained by institutional size, a factor considered by some ranking agencies.

“Some well-known universities on the mainland have multiple campuses, but Hong Kong has had no such luxury until now. The Northern Metropolis offers a valuable opportunity for us to expand, especially given that land in Hong Kong is such a precious resource,” he said.