Media

The World 100 Conference has been organised by the World 100 Reputation Network and HKU to address university reputation management from a variety of angles.

The Secretary for Education Mr Michael Suen Ming-yeung reiterated at the opening address the government's policy to support further development of an internationalized higher education sector and to develop Hong Kong into a regional education hub.

"It is our strong belief that closer international collaboration will enable us to learn from our international peers to strive for excellence," he said.

HKU Vice-Chancellor Professor Lap-Che Tsui elaborated on the benefits of internationalizations and new directions in stakeholder engagement in a speech entitled "Growing and Sustaining Excellence in an Ever-Changing World". Professor Tsui further elaborated on the University's strategy to attract and nurture outstanding scholars from around the world, to build on internationalisation and engaging the rest of China, and to broaden partnerships and alternative funding source.

World University Rankings have become part of the global ‘brand' of universities. Mr Phil Baty, Deputy Editor of Times Higher Education briefed audience of a current review of the methodology for the rankings in 2010. Of which, a major revamp will be taken on the reputation survey from academic peer reviews, which used to constitute 40% of the scores. The rest are from citations, recruiter review, student faculty ratio, international students and international staff.

In the new reputation survey, a much bigger pool of over 13,000 academic respondents from around the world will be asked of their opinions on the standards of both research and teaching. The reputation survey (research) will be included as a research indicator, together with other research indicators of citation impact, academic papers and research income, will make up 55% of the scores. The reputation survey (teaching) will be counted as an institutional indicator, together with other indicators of undergraduate entrants, PhD and undergraduate awarded, and institutional income, will make up 25% of the scores. The rest of the scores will come from economic activity and innovation, and institutional diversity.

For media enquiries, please contact Ms Trinni Choy (Assistant Director (Media), Communications and Public Affairs Office) tel: 2859 2606 / email: pychoy@hku.hk  or Ms Melanie Wan (Manager (Media), Communications and Public Affairs Office) tel: 2859 2600 / email: melwkwan@hku.hk .