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by
Nigel J French2
Secretary-General
University Grants Committee
This paper describes the principal activities of the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (RGC) during its first seven years of operation and attempts to assess the Council's achievements. It also presents the author's personal view on the future direction of the RGC's work.
During the period of seven years since the RGC was established, ie from 1991 to 1997, Hong Kong's higher education sector has experienced dramatic change and expansion. This is described more fully in the University Grants Committee's report, published in November 1996, on its review of the development of higher education in Hong Kong3. Suffice it to say here that, from 1991 to 1995, the age participation rate, in terms of the number of first year first degree places available locally as a percentage of the relevant (17 - 20) age group, was doubled to 18%, the number of postgraduate student places was increased by 158% and some 3,500 new faculty were recruited to teach and do research in Hong Kong's seven (now eight) new or expanded UGC-funded higher education institutions.
Prior to the establishment of the RGC, the need for Hong Kong to develop its own academic reseach capability had been recognised for some time by the UGC. In 1983 the Committee invited Lord Flowers, then Rector of Imperial College in London, to head a working party to advise on the development of academic research in Hong Kong. The report of this working party (the "Flowers Report") recommended, inter alia, the esatablishment of an independent Research Grants Committee (sic) to administer research project grants and advise on the academic research needs of the UGC-funded institutions. The Hong Kong Government was eventually persuaded of the need for specific additional funding to support academic research projects in 1986 (with provision of funds effective from 1988), but only endorsed the establishment of a Research Grants Council to administer such grants in 1990.
The RGC, under the chairmanship of Prof (now Sir) David Todd, came into being in January 1991, with an initial budget of HK$100 million. Its terms of reference were :
to advise the Government, through the UGC, on the needs of the institutions of higher education in Hong Kong in the field of academic research, including the identification of priority areas, in order that a research base adequate for the maintenance of academic vigour and pertinent to the needs of Hong Kong may be developed; and to invite and receive, through the institutions of higher education, applications for research grants from academic staff and for the award of studentships and post-doctoral fellowships; to approve awards and other disbursements from funds made available by the Government through the UGC for research; to monitor the implementation of such grants and to report at least annually to the Government through the UGC.
The RGC's members were drawn from the local academic and business sectors and included some eminent overseas academics. For the purposes of its principal activity, the consideration of applications for research grants, the Council operated, and still operates, on the basis of peer review through subject panels comprising mainly local academics and an international network of expert referees, currently some 6,000 strong. The budget at the Council's disposal, principally for competitively award project grants, has grown to HK$423 million in 1997-98 - see Figure 1.
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The research culture in the UGC-funded institutions has also blossomed under this watering of additional resources. Output of refereed research publications has increased significantly in recent years (from 7,859 items in 1994 to 9,987 items in 1996. Indeed according to a recent study by the UK's Office of Science and Technology4, Hong Kong is one of the places having the fastest growth in refereed research output in the world.
That the quality of this output is high and improving is also attested by the UGC's second Research Assessment Exercise conducted in late 1996. All the eight subject panels reported significant improvements in the range and quality of research work assessed since the first such exercise in 1993. At the same time, the top 10% - 15% of project proposals submitted for consideration by the RGC in recent years would, according to members with experience in other competitive research granting systems, have been competitive anywhere.
The institutions' annual research expenditure has increased from HK$743 million in 1991-92 to HK$3,176 million in 1996-97. However it should be noted that even the latter figure still only represented about 0.2% of Hong Kong's Gross Domestic Product in that year. The proportion of academic staff having higher research degrees has also grown from 49% in 1991-92 to 70% this year.
Hong Kong's research community cannot exist and flourish in isolation. The involvement of overseas academics in the RGC's panels and the RGC itself (and the UGC) greatly facilitates international calibration and exchanges of ideas. Both the UGC and the RGC have taken a number of initiatives to promote and support international linkages at the institutional level. For many years the UGC has provided additional funding specifically to support academic exchanges with higher education institutions and research establishments in mainland China. The RGC has been operating joint research schemes providing travel grants as seed funding to facilitate collegial exchanges between faculty in Hong Kong and their counterparts in the UK (through the British Council) and Germany (through the German Academic Exchange Service) since 1992 and 1995 respectively. The Council is also in discussion with the French Consulate in Hong Kong about the possibility of introducing a similar scheme with France.
Locally the RGC, naturally, maintains close ties with the UGC-funded institutions. Apart from the fact that the majority of the RGC's and its panels' members are drawn from the Hong Kong research community, the institutions submit annual reports and detailed statistical returns on their research activities during the preceding year, and these are subject to detailed scrutiny by the Council. The Council also pays regular visits to the institutions and meets the Chairmen of their research committees at least once a year.
The Council has also established and maintains links with other research funding bodies - private trusts, like the Croucher Foundation, the Sir Edward Youde Memorial Fund and the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, and public bodies, like the Industry and Technology Development Council, the Standing Committee on Language Education and Research, the Health Services Research Fund, the Environment and Conservation Fund, etc.
Links with local industry are still rather limited, although there are some local industrialists among the RGC's membership and the Council has instituted a Cooperative Research Centre funding scheme aimed at leveraging support for university research by industry and encouraging technology transfer.
What then of the RGC's achievements? How far has the Council been successful in fulfilling its terms of reference?
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Meanwhile, the administrative load on the Council's Secretariat has grown and continues to grow exponentially, both for the initial processing of applications and for the subsequent monitoring of funded projects. The process remains highly labour and paper intensive, despite the Secretariat's efforts to make use of information technology. Nevertheless, the processing cost per application remains relatively low at HK$4,550 for 1997-98, which is equivalent to only 0.8 % of the average grant awarded.
But what of the other aspects of the Council's terms of reference?
The first part of the RGC's terms of reference refers to "(advising) the Government, through the UGC, on the needs of higher education institutions in the field of academic research, including the identification of priority areas, ........." (emphasis added). At the outset, the Council agreed not to attempt to identify priority areas for the institutions in academic research. Given the then early stage of development of the research culture in the UGC-funded institutions, it was felt to be better to give free rein to faculty to pursue their research interests. This undoubtedly achieved the objective of maintaining academic vigour and was necessary at a time when many new faculty were being recruited in almost all disciplines and needed to be attracted to Hong Kong with the prospect of continued funding for their research.
However, the SAR Chief Executive's policy address in October 19975 emphasised "developing new policies aimed at stimulating technology industries" and the MIT "Made by Hong Kong" study6 recommended that "university research should be brought into closer alignment with the needs of local industry". This may indicate that the Council needs to revisit this issue and consider placing more emphasis on the "pertinent to the needs of Hong Kong" in part (a) of its terms of reference. Alternatively it may indicate a need to do more to convince the Government, the Legislature and the public at large of the longer term value of academic research.
For example, Michael Faraday's study of electromagnetic induction might now be regarded by some as not pertinent to the needs of society. The fact that without him there would have been no expeditious development of the processes of conversion of motion into electricity, and the reverse, would be lost on those who promote short term gains. Similarly, no doubt, Florey and Chain would now be deemed foolish by some for growing vats of mouldy Penicillium and investigating the mode of action and chemical structure of one of the principal products. If immediate relevance to the needs of local industry were to be the lode-stone, then we would have had no Penicillin and the subsequent revolution in health care.
Moreover, there have been significant changes in the environment since the RGC was established. There are now major Government funding schemes available to support applied research (Industrial Support Fund, Applied Research Council, etc). The Hong Kong Industrial Technology Centre Corporation was established in 1993 as an incubator for new technology-based industries. The Government has announced its intention to develop a science park on a site at Pak Shek Kok adjacent to the KCR and the Tolo Highway near CUHK. Arguably, therefore, the role of the RGC in supporting applied research and development is less important now than it was seven years ago.
At any rate, at least for the purposes of developing a "research base adequate for the maintenance of academic vigour (in the institutions)" and allowing the institutions to develop as they see fit in accordance with their distinct and complementary roles and missions, it is surely preferable to leave the determination of priority areas to the institutions themselves.
The second part of the RGC's terms of reference refers to disbursing funds "for the award of studentships and post-doctoral fellowships". To date this has only been partly achieved: by the award of funding in project grants towards the costs of research studentships and, in the case of a few highly ranked project proposals, the costs of post-doctoral fellowships; and by the RGC's allocation of the central pool of research postgraduate student numbers and associated funding (at least until this task was taken back by the UGC in 1996).
The allocation of the RPg central pool never sat easily on the RGC's shoulders. Initial attempts to develop a judgmental basis for allocation of these student numbers and funding failed to satisfy all members of the Council, who, it will be remembered, are mostly local academics. An alternative, more formulaic approach, mainly based on the results of the UGC's research assessment exercise in 1993, was felt not to be sufficiently sensitive to differences of institutional mission. Eventually, to the relief of the RGC, the UGC decided to take back responsibility for the allocation of the RPg central pool and has recently been undertaking a review of postgraduate education aimed at developing a methodology for making such allocations based, at least in part, on some measure of performance in research student supervision. It is perhaps unfortunate that the RGC felt unable or was unwilling to embark on such an exercise itself, since this would have been well within its remit.
More recently a suggestion has been raised that the RGC again consider a research studentship and/or post-doctoral fellowship scheme. This has yet to be considered formally by the Council, however. Meanwhile the Croucher Foundation has instituted a Senior Research Fellowship scheme with effect from 1997, with initial funding for four fellowships. If the RGC is to undertake the administration of a separate funding scheme(s) for research studentships or post-doctoral fellowships, it will undoubtedly need to establish a separate selection mechanism, since the panels are already fully committed, and may find it difficult to recruit sufficient well-qualified and respected colleagues to serve on the necessary selection panel(s). It will also need to take into account the capacity of the UGC Secretariat to cope with the additional workload.
Conclusion
Overall the RGC appears to have achieved much of what it set out, and was established, to achieve. The Council itself and its Panels have been functioning well, thanks to the dedication of the many colleagues in and from outside Hong Kong who devote so much time to assessing research proposals, participating in institutional visits and otherwise contributing to the RGC's deliberations and activities. A vibrant research culture has been developed and is still growing in the UGC-funded institutions. As the current RGC Chairman, Prof Ping Ko, put it in his Foreword to the Council's annual report for 1995: "...fundamental structural and cultural changes have taken place in the institutions at both the institutional as well as the grassroot levels to induce and support research."7 The quality of this research as represented by project proposals and completed work assessed by the RGC and the UGC's research assessment exercises is high and improving.
This has not been achieved without some costs, however. In a study undertaken for the Carnegie Foundation in Hong Kong and thirteen other countries in 1993 8, about half of the Hong Kong academic staff surveyed stated that "the pressure to publish reduces the quality of teaching"9 in their institutions. Efforts have been made by the institutions, with the support of the UGC, to redress this perceived imbalance, but these are unlikely to be completely successful unless and until faculty reward systems give as much recognition to the quality of teaching as they do to the quality of research. This is, however, not a problem peculiar to Hong Kong, of course.
Moreover there remain concerns on the part of some institutions, notably the former polytechnics, that their particular roles and missions are not sufficiently recognised by the RGC's (and the RAE's) perceived emphasis on academic research. These concerns, expressed on a number of occasions, but most recently to me during a visit to PolyU earlier this month (December 1997), arise from what are felt to be different messages - "mixed signals" - emanating from the RGC and the UGC. On the one hand the UGC encourages the institutions to develop in accordance with their distinct and complementary roles and missions, focussing on their areas of strength and not seeking to compete with each other in all respects. On the other, the RGC appears to urge all institutions to develop their research capabilities in all areas, and the UGC's RAE is felt to place greater emphasis on traditional research outputs as indicators of quality research activity.
In both cases I believe the intentions of the RGC and the UGC are the same - to support and encourage the development of an active research culture appropriate to the role and mission of each institution. In this context "research" should probably be as widely defined as possible, to include all creative and scholarly activity, wherever it appears on the basic:applied spectrum, provided that the intellectual content is sound. However, it must presumably be accepted that the signals are mixed if that is how they are perceived. It may be that greater communication between the UGC and the RGC and between both bodies and the institutions is needed on these matters to ensure that the signals sent are, as far as possible, the same as the signals received.
Be that as it may, the value of university research surely remains in, to quote a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong: "the building up of information which links in to complete its part in the ceaselessly changing and growing network of man's current knowledge." 10 The role of the RGC in supporting and developing good quality research in Hong Kong is as important as ever.
Personally, I would hope that the RGC will adhere to its mission of principally supporting good quality academic research. Suggestions that the Council should shift its emphasis more towards applied research and that "university research should be brought into closer alignment with the needs of local industry" (MIT Study) are to my mind misplaced. The value of much university research is surely mainly at a level where relevance to 'the needs of local industry' cannot be determined, because that industry is not yet born. Moreover, as indicated earlier, there are many other avenues for the support of applied research now than there were seven years ago.
I appreciate that the Council itself may also feel uncertain or unclear about its future direction. This retreat serves as a useful opportunity for reflection and re-examination of the Council's mission. However, we should beware of seeking change for the sake of it. If it ain't broke,......etc
There is a phenomenon in marriages called the "seven year itch". This affliction is supposed to affect couples after seven years of otherwise happily married life, making one or both partners seek alternative sources of interest and affection. It usually arises from a feeling of malaise and dissatisfaction with an increasingly routine, albeit successful and happy relationship. As someone who has been happily married for more than 25 years, I hope that the RGC will not succumb to the seven year itch, but rather will renew its original wedding vows (in terms of its mission to support the development of academic research in Hong Kong), while seeking continuously to improve and raise quality standards.
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