The University of Hong Kong (HKU) will establish its Shenzhen campus in Shibilong area, Xili Subdistrict in Nanshan District, as announced in a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed by the Shenzhen government and HKU on Monday, sources from the Shenzhen Municipal Education Bureau said.
This move is believed to be able to boost resource integration between Hong Kong and Shenzhen, the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and the construction of Shenzhen as a pilot demonstration area of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
According to the MOU, both parties will undertake joint efforts to build the University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen) into a first-class comprehensive research university with a global vision while rooted in Shenzhen.
The planned university will offer undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in science, medicine, law, engineering, architecture, smart cities, life science, data and intelligence, advanced materials and financial technology.
The MOU is one of the agreements that Shenzhen and Hong Kong have signed at the 2021 Shenzhen-Hong Kong Cooperation Conference, which was held in Shenzhen on Monday.
Shibilong is part of Xili Lake International Science and Education Town. The town is home to half of Shenzhen’s higher learning institutions, such as Shenzhen University, the Southern University of Science and Technology, the Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, and Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, and 60 percent of top-caliber talent in the city.
The town, covering 57.1 square kilometers in northern Nanshan, will be built as a base for national basic science research and applications as well as a center for innovation in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, according to a plan of the city’s planning authority.
The University of Hong Kong is Hong Kong’s oldest tertiary institution, with a history stretching back over 100 years, and one of the top public universities in the SAR, according to its official website. It rose nine places in the 2022 THE World University Rankings, released last week, climbing from 39th to 30th.
