Sub-Standard Research

The author argued that, on the basis of the Science Citation Index, Hong Kong research was "sub-standard" and "had no improvements in the past 10 years". This is far from true. We wish to point out that the Science Citation Index is only one of many indicators of research performance. In an article entitled "Scientific Wealth of Nations" in the "Science" Magazine (Volume 275, Number 5301 Issue of 7 February 1997), Robert M May pointed out that the Science Citation Index was just a simple quantitative count which had to be used with care with other evaluation methods, such as measurement relative to population and GDP to more accurately reflect research productivity and quality.

Even on the basis of quantity, however, the Science Citation Index indicated that from 1989 to 1996, the quantity of research papers registered from Hong Kong had tripled. As each SCI research publication has been peer-reviewed, the research work done must have met or exceeded an acceptable international quality threshold. It can therefore hardly support the suggestion that there had been no improvement in Hong Kong's research.

Furthermore, direct comparison of Hong Kong's research output with that of neighboring countries was not appropriate, because the author did not take into account such important factors as the size of the population, number of researchers, the availability of research funding and actual national research expenditure of the countries being compared with Hong Kong. In an article entitled "Western research assessment meets Asian culture" in the magazine, "Nature", David Swinbanks and Richard Nathan pointed out that Hong Kong, with a citation impact of 1.94, is the only area among Mainland China and the Asian Tigers (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore), which is among the top 30 nations (at position 28). The authors added that even Japan, which ranked three in terms of total output and has a rating of 3.18, was only ranked 17th in the world. In terms of research expenditure, Hong Kong's is still, despite recent increases, below 0.3% of GDP, whereas that of Japan, US and other developed European countries normally exceeds 2.5% of their GDP. Given these indicators, Hong Kong's research can hardly be described as "sub-standard" and "had no improvements in the past 10 years".

To illustrate further the improvements in Hong Kong's research, in 1996 the University Grants Committee (UGC) conducted a second Research Assessment exercise (RAE) involving almost 120 local and overseas academics to assess the research output of the UGC-funded institutions for funding assessment purposes. The RAE 1996 reaffirmed that research in the UGC-funded institutions had made significant overall improvements compared with the first assessment done three years earlier. Overseas members of the RAE panels considered that Hong Kong institutions were performing as well in research as the top 10% of the universities worldwide. Furthermore, in its First Report released in September 1998, the Chief Executive's Commission on Innovation & Technology (CIT) also agreed with the UGC's existing policy to emphasize the quality of research.

Some further statistics are provided below to illustrate recent developments in research in Hong Kong. In the 1998-99 Competitive Earmarked Research Grant (CERG) exercise, the RGC received over 1,418 applications (not 14,000 as stated in the "Next" article). Following a rigorous peer-review process, 214 of the applications (including those of Professor Kathy Cheah and Dr V Lam) were rated on the basis of international peer review to be definitely internationally competitive. The numbers of applications rated in this category in 1996-97 and 1997-98 were 143 and 191 respectively.

Moreover, in recent years, the RGC has made a conscious effort to raise the quality threshold. The success rate in terms of the number of research applications that have been selected for partial or full funding has been lowered from 67% in 1991 to 40% in 1998. The RGC is pleased to note that the CIT's First Report also affirms that despite a short history and a late start in research, higher education institutions in Hong Kong have made very good progress and that a robust research culture has emerged. Indeed, the good work of the institutions in research has been given regular coverage by various media.

Abuse of System

The author further alleged in the article that the funding allocation process was not transparent, and that there had been an abuse of the system by certain panel members. These very serious allegations are totally unfounded. We have explained to the author in previous interviews that all CERG proposals submitted to the RGC have to pass through a very rigorous peer-review process in accordance with international practice. The four RGC subject panels have about 80 members, 14 of whom are from overseas. The Biology & Medicine (B&M) Panel has 16 members, 4 of whom, including the Panel Chairman, are overseas members. Members are appointed to the RGC subject panels in their own personal capacity. In order to avoid any conflict of interest, panel members are as a rule not assigned to handle proposals from their own institutions.

Moreover, each proposal is forwarded to about five independent external reviewers in the relevant fields for review. In fact, nearly 90% of our external reviewers are from outside Hong Kong. For an effective assessment to be made, each proposal should have obtained at least two external reviews. In CERG 1998-99, the average number of external assessments received per application was 3.7. The external assessments received are referred to two panel members who have no personal relationship with the applicants for further consideration. Their recommendations, together with the external assessments, are then considered by the whole panel which makes the funding decision. If a panel member happens to be an applicant of a research proposal, he/she will have to leave the room when the proposal is discussed by the panel. If a panel member is the supervisor of the applicant of a research proposal, he/she can offer factual information only when invited by the panel, and cannot take part in the panel decision on that proposal. After the panel has made a funding decision, all the comments of the external reviewers together with the panel comments, if any, are fed back anonymously to the applicants and their institutions.

Furthermore, most of the information about the mode of operation, organizational structure, the peer-review system and results of the competitive bidding exercise in the current and previous years are set out in the RGC Annual Reports and the RGC Homepage . The results of CERG 1998-99 were also made public at a press conference held on 3 July 1998. A press can still be found in the RGC Homepage. The operation of the RGC is therefore highly transparent. Given the transparency of the operation, it is highly unlikely that individual penal members could manipulate the process for their own gains, as alleged by the article.

Insufficient Monitoring/Waste of Public Resources

The author also mentioned two other issues in his article. First, that the RGC has no monitoring or assessment procedures after funding a research project, which has led to general abuse and a poor quality of research. Second, some of the research projects have no relevance to Hong Kong or the daily life of our citizens. The first allegation is totally incorrect. The RGC has a rigorous monitoring and assessment system of all on-going and completed RGC-funded projects. Researchers have to submit annual progress reports to the RGC and a final report upon project completion. The necessary report forms can be found in the RGC Homepage. Annual progress reports are referred to RGC panel members for monitoring while completion reports are referred to external reviewers, the responsible panel members and the whole panel for assessment. The assessment helps discharge public accountability and also enables the RGC to evaluate the extent to which the projects have achieved their objectives, and whether there has been proper usage of the research funding. In the case of completion reports assessed to be below acceptable quality, the RGC will raise these issues with the researchers and their institutions, and such records will be referred to when the researchers next apply for RGC grants.

In referring to the three projects allegedly having no local relevance to Hong Kong, the author tried to prove his point in the caption that the funding of such projects by the RGC was a waste of public funds. Universities are for the education, intellectual development of individuals and training of the mind. If our academics cannot appreciate the value of art, art history and culture, how can they train our students to appreciate such things? The projects mentioned should be seen in the overall context of what university research is about. The three projects were taken out of context to support the author's biassed viewpoint. To gain a full flavour of the research landscape in Hong Kong, it is advisable to consult the full list of CERG projects (550 in 1998-99, and almost 3,000 since 1991) which can be found in the RGC Homepage.