Home  FAQs  Research What is the Research Endowment Fund (REF)? How does the Fund work? In the 2008-09 Budget Speech, the Financial Secretary announced that the Government would set up an $18 billion Research Endowment Fund (REF) to support research at the UGC-funded institutions. The REF was established in 2009 to provide a steady flow of research funding for the institutions. The UGC is responsible for advising on the policies governing the operation, development and investment of the Fund. Out of the $18 billion, the investment income of at least $14 billion will be used to replace, from the 2010/11 academic year onwards, the bulk of the existing earmarked research grants distributed annually to the RGC, thus providing greater funding stability and certainty of funding to support institutions’ research projects. In addition, the investment income from up to $4 billion of the REF will be deployed to support theme-based research, thus allowing the institutions to work on research proposals on themes of a longer-term nature and strategically beneficial to the development of Hong Kong.