The Chief Executive's 2005 Policy Address stated that the Government would continue to reinforce the policy research capability and would allocate, for each of the next three years, an additional $20 million to the University Grants Committee, which will task its RGC with promoting public policy research in higher education institutions. In this connection, an amount of $20 million (including 15% overhead cost for use by the UGC/RGC Secretariat) will be allocated from the Central Policy Unit (CPU) to the RGC annually for three consecutive years from 2005-06 to 2007-08 financial years.

In the 2007/08 Policy Agenda, the Government decided to extend the PPR scheme for four more years (i.e. from 2008/09 - 2011/12) with an annual provision of $20 million. To support longer term public policy research projects, the CPU has decided to deploy half of the $20 million annual provision to launch a Strategic Public Policy Research (SPPR) Funding Scheme once a year starting from 2008/09. Applications will be invited in March/April and the funding result will be announced in end December. The objective is to facilitate more longer term public policy research and to focus efforts on specific areas. Please click here for the call circular issued by the Secretary, RGC to the Heads of UGC-funded institutions inviting applications.

Alongside the SPPR running once a year, the normal PPR scheme will run once a year instead of twice a year in the past three years. Applications will be invited in September and the funding result will be announced in end June. For the PPR 2010/2011 (8th Round) exercise, please click here for the call circular issued by the Secretary, RGC to the Heads of UGC-funded institutions inviting applications.

A broad definition of public policy research is adopted to cover academic research that will have explicit policy implications on public policy development in Hong Kong. Duration of the PPR research projects ranges from six months to a maximum of three years and the SPPR research projects can last up to five years.