Curriculum
43 related courses were offered in the 2024–25 academic year.
Policies
In order to foster innovation, entrepreneurship and the exchange of knowledge, CUHK has implemented its Policy on Research, which deals with professional ethics and research misconduct. The University has also introduced an Policy on Intellectual Property with a specific emphasis on safeguarding intellectual property rights. Through its research endeavours, CUHK not only leaves a notable imprint on the academic and scientific sectors but also positively impacts the broader public in various ways.
Research
Professor Gary Choi Pui-tung, Vice-Chancellor Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics has been honoured with the Croucher Tak Wah Mak Innovation Award 2025 by the Croucher Foundation in recognition of his outstanding contributions in scientific research. His research focuses on developing sophisticated mathematical tools to better model and visualize complex anatomical structures, with the aim of improving medical imaging for diagnosis and surgery. Addressing the limitations of existing computational techniques, his project aims to create a suite of tools that handle intricate geometry and topology. His work helps to simplify the visualization and modelling of a wide range of medical structures, thereby aiding in disease prognosis and diagnosis.
A collaborative research team led by Professor Zhang Li at CUHK’s Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering has developed an innovative inverse programming technology for magnetic soft materials. This technology enables the magnetization distribution to be precisely programmed, so that the material can be transformed without difficulty into the desired three-dimensional surface under magnetic actuation. Most human organs have intricate 3D morphologies. For instance, the gastrointestinal tract features numerous wrinkled structures, making it very challenging to develop medical patches for targeted treatment. This technology is expected to assist medical professionals in customizing patches to fit the specific morphology of a patient’s gastrointestinal tract, improving the effectiveness of treatment by ensuring a comfortable fit on the surface of the affected organ.
Advancing Healthcare through AI Innovation
A research team led by Professor Scott Yuan Wu, Assistant Professor of Department of Biomedical Engineering, CUHK, in collaboration with Professor Wang Ningli’s team at Beijing Tongren Hospital, has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) ophthalmic imaging foundation model called VisionFM. This pioneering model, which reveals the association between intracranial tumors and retinal images, enables the presence of tumors to be predicted from low-cost retinal images. The model outperforms existing models in ophthalmic disease diagnosis, achieving diagnostic accuracy comparable to that of an ophthalmologist with 4-8 years of clinical experience. The discovery represents an important breakthrough in ophthalmic disease diagnosis, and should enable tumors to be detected earlier in community and primary care settings. It has been deployed in China’s Henan Province to diagnose common eye diseases. With its open-source codebase and model, it is poised to address global challenges and improve patient outcomes through advanced AI technology.
Accelerating transformation of research to reality
CUHK holds 19 subsidiaries in Hong Kong and Mainland China, including CUHK Health Limited and CUHK Innovation Limited (CUHK Innovation), which serve to extend the knowledge and expertise of the University to the industry and the community. Its Technology Start-up Support Scheme for Universities (TSSSU) continues to support CUHK professors, students and alumni to transform their research output into real business opportunities. With funding from the TSSSU and dedicated support from the Research Office and Knowledge Transfer Office, over 22 startups have been formed in 2025.
In April 2025, CUHK and AstraZeneca Global R&D (China) Co., Ltd. (AstraZeneca) signed a 5-year Strategic Alliance Agreement, with the aim of facilitating scientific communication between academia and industry, thereby accelerating the transformation of basic medical research to clinical practice. The two parties plan to explore areas of common interest, including human disease mechanisms, data sciences for multi-omics research, biomarker identification and validation, translational medicine research, clinical trial support, scientific exchange and talent development.
CUHK Innovation Ltd. and the University’s Research and Knowledge Transfer Office co-hosted the CUHK Innovation Summit 2025 on 31 March 2025. The Summit attracted over 150 attendees, fostering exchanges between CUHK startups and the investment community. During the Summit, CUHK Innovation also announced the latest developments in the University’s investment platform, further supporting CUHK startups in transforming their research outcomes to benefit society.
Students from CUHK achieved outstanding results in the ‘11th Hong Kong University Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition’, winning 22 awards—more than any other Hong Kong university. The awards include: the grand prize, three first prizes, five second prizes, five third prizes and one merit prize in the innovation category, and the grand prize, one first prize, two second prizes, one third prize and one merit prize in the entrepreneurship category. CUHK also won the Outstanding Organization Award for its outstanding achievements. This competition provided an ideal platform for CUHK students to showcase their creativity and entrepreneurial potential, while also gaining useful practical experience to help them progress further on their innovation journey.
Establishing the Greater Bay Area as a world-class hub for innovation
In May 2024, the Guangdong Provincial Department of Science and Technology signed a tripartite cooperation plan with CUHK and CUHK (Shenzhen). According to this plan, the Department of Science and Technology of Guangdong Province will invest 10 million RMB in provincial financial funds annually between 2024 and 2026, equal amounts will be invested by CUHK (Shenzhen) and CUHK, and the total investment will form a seed funding pool to organize and implement the ‘1 + 1 + 1 Joint Collaboration Fund Project’ for universities in Guangdong and Hong Kong. This collaboration focuses on supporting projects that meet the economic and social development needs of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and have significant influence, specifically covering the following three major categories: scientific research projects, platform construction projects, and young scholar projects. The scheme was launched in April 2025 at CUHK (Shenzhen). More than 200 representatives from government and academic circles attended to witness the event. The scheme will allow CUHK and CUHK (Shenzhen) to jointly serve the Greater Bay Area and transform it into a world-class hub for science and innovation.
