Strategic Plan 2021-2028

A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK Assessing Where We Are Established in 1991, HKUST is an internationally-minded research University founded on the principle that education, original scholarship, and societal development are intimately linked and best pursued together. Fundamental to this principle is our global and humanity-oriented approach: advancement of humanity through the development of an international community and the nurturing of individuals alongside original research and knowledge transfer. These ideals support each other and are re ected in al l endeavors of the University: advances in the arts and sciences, engineering, and business are strongly connected to societal issues such as sustainability and climate change; wealth disparity; social justice; geopolitical con icts; and notably the pandemic that has transformed our world over in the past few months. As a prominent internat ional Universi ty, HKUST has a profound commitment to furthering the mission of the academy: providing an open, inclusive, and free campus to support education and research of the highest quality. As an important Hong Kong institution, HKUST has a deep obligation to help address the social, political, and economic challenges that our city faces. HKUST supports in-depth studies in selected discipl ines, structured under four Schools: Science; Engineering; Business and Management; and Humanities and Social Science. Each School offers degree programs, recruits faculty, admits and educates students, and engages staff based on its scope and ambition. Our faculty independently choose and pursue their research activities, while Departments and Divisions within Schools offer home bases under an umbrella that ensures discipl ines as a whole our ish. In addi t ion to Schools, the Interdisciplinary Programs Of ce (IPO) encourages, facilitates, and promotes academic endeavors that do not t neatly within a single School’s intellectual scope. This unrestricted blue-sky framework, designed to stimulate creativity and enable discovery, is a trademark of a modern university. An important feature of HKUST's integrated approach is the support provided for the further development of the ideas and inventions generated by our University community. Going beyond initial inspiration and invention, the University assists and encourages the application of basic research through practical usage and entrepreneurship, along with other societal contributions. These knowledge transfer activities are a core component of our approach to ful lling our primary objectives. Overcoming Existing Boundaries The breadth of contemporary scholarship and the ever more complex problems facing society are challenging our traditional academic division into Schools and Disciplines. As new research directions take shape and as new expertise among faculty and students develops, the traditional disciplinary boundaries can seem restrictive. For example, the newly emerging area of Data Science requires core competencies and encompasses research directions that do not t within any existing academic department. Similarly, the pandemic has shown the urgent need for a University structure that joins together the wide expertise (including biology, medicine, public health, advanced materials, autonomous systems and sensor technologies, integrated data analytics, economics, public policy, and ethics) required to provide mission-encouraged, system-wide solutions. 4