Hong Kong a rising contributor to Greater Bay Area's research in strategic fields like AI and biomedicine, report says

Hong Kong has become a rising contributor to academic research and development in the Greater Bay Area (GBA), covering fields of national strategic importance that include biomedicine, environmental science, clean energy, artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing, according to a new report.

The GBA has seen total research output from the region nearly double from 2018 to 2022, as the number of publications reached 142,663 by the end of the period, according to a report released on Monday by information analytics firm Elsevier, which was commissioned by the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). The number of active researchers in the region also doubled during the same period, with 207,800 scholars as of 2022.

"As an engine driving the future growth of our country, the region must strengthen the deep integration of academic research, innovation and entrepreneurship," CUHK Pro-Vice-Chancellor Sham Mai-har said at the launch of the report in southern tech hub Shenzhen.

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Sham said the Elsevier report's findings showed that the region's research output is starting to reflect the size and scale of this dynamic area.

The Chinese University of Hong Kong is one of the world's top 100 universities. Photo: Shutterstock alt=The Chinese University of Hong Kong is one of the world's top 100 universities. Photo: Shutterstock>

The GBA is Beijing's plan to integrate Hong Kong, Macau and nine cities in southern Guangdong province into a new powerhouse - with more than 86 million people combined - that is envisioned to surpass the economic heft of the New York Metropolitan Area and Tokyo Bay region by 2035.

The Elsevier report shows the GBA's efforts to grow into a world-class information and technology hub, and what Hong Kong has done so far to help drive that goal forward.

Hong Kong's universities were collectively described as the main "pulling force" in international and industry collaborations in the GBA, according to Lynn Li, president of Elsevier Greater China.

CUHK, for example, made its biggest contribution in AI with 1,244 publications from 2018 to 2022, according to the report. That accounted for 5.8 per cent of the GBA's total research output of 21,432 publications in the field during the same period.

In biomedicine, CUHK contributed its largest research output among the five strategic fields with 3,265 publications in that five-year period, which made up 5.3 per cent of the GBA's total output of 61,548 publications in the field.

Research initiatives at the Chinese University of Hong Kong are contributing prominently to supporting technological advances in the Greater Bay Area, according to a report from information analytics firm Elsevier. Image: Shutterstock alt=Research initiatives at the Chinese University of Hong Kong are contributing prominently to supporting technological advances in the Greater Bay Area, according to a report from information analytics firm Elsevier. Image: Shutterstock>

CUHK also contributed 5.1 per cent, 3.4 per cent and 2.6 per cent to the GBA's total research output, respectively, in the fields of quantum technology, environmental science and clean energy during that five-year period, according to the report.

Hong Kong is home to five of the world's top 100 universities, namely the CUHK, the University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and City University, according to the 2024 QS World University Ranking.

The city's overall contribution to the GBA's research output has been the strongest in the areas of computer science and engineering, disciplines that have laid the foundations for the development of AI and robotics, according to the Elsevier report.

It also indicated that researchers in Hong Kong are more productive than their peers in the GBA, producing twice as many publications per active author as those in the rest of the region.

Still, Hong Kong's major academic institutions lagged behind Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province. The 100-year-old public research university contributed the biggest number of publications in the GBA, according to the report.

Elsevier also found that Huawei Technologies, Tencent Holdings and state-owned China Southern Power Grid were the enterprises leading collaboration between academia and industry in the GBA.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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