Xu Yangsheng

Email of the writer: zhqcindy@163.com

In the eyes of Xu Yangsheng, president of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, a wider scope of cooperation should be developed between the two cities in order to jointly build a bay area of innovation.

Xu said that he anticipates more in-depth cooperation between Hong Kong and its neighbor, Shenzhen, especially in terms of institutional cooperation among institutes of higher education.

“At present, institutional cooperation from both sides has not been adequate and I hope to see more in-depth collaboration. For instance, it could be an innovative reform to allow professors in Hong Kong and Shenzhen to apply for funds from both cities,” Xu told Shenzhen Daily.

Before being appointed as president of CUHK (SZ), Xu had been teaching, doing research and managing the Chinese University of Hong Kong for 14 years. His background and achievements accumulated over the past decades in the field of computer science and automation have made him an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

Xu was elected to lead the new university in Longgang District in 2014 with an aim of helping the institution become a world-class research university. The president stated on many occasions that his goal was to bring “Hong Kong Characteristics” to this Shenzhen university.

When being asked the major differences between a Hong Kong university and a university on the mainland, Xu said that higher education institutions in Hong Kong carried out solid theoretical research throughout the entire ’90s, while many universities on the mainland that were strong in research were mainly serving national-level research, which did not form basic theories for students’ courses.

“I have to admit that universities on the mainland are developing at a faster pace than I expected, so these universities need a large amount of international and inter-disciplinary talents,” said Xu.

CUHK (SZ) is an ideal place to cultivate such talents, according to Xu. He explained that the university attaches a great significance to traditional Chinese philosophy and Western cultures, as well as the arts and sciences. “We are trying to help our students understand that it is important to look at things from multiple perspectives without prejudice,” said Xu.

He said that Shenzhen urgently needed to have a high-level international research university to cultivate high quality talents and get rid of its label as a base for simple manufacturing and low-cost labor.

Xu said that universities in Shenzhen still have a long way to go. “CUHK (SZ) is working to establish partnerships with more universities around the world so that we can generate more programs and courses for our students.”

“Both Shenzhen and Hong Kong are great cities and if their forces could be bound together, it would be a magnificent area for innovation,” said Xu.