Results of the Fourth Matching Grant Scheme Announced

The University Grants Committee (UGC) announced today (March 17) the overall results of the Fourth Matching Grant Scheme. The Scheme ran from January 1, 2008 to February 28, 2009. The eight UGC-funded institutions, together with Hong Kong Shue Yan University and the Open University of Hong Kong, have secured over $2.1 billion in donations under this fourth round, and the $1 billion matching grant was fully allocated. The final results are set out at the Annex.

The Chairman of UGC, Hon Laura Cha, said, "It is encouraging to see that the community has responded to the Matching Grant Scheme with generous support in both good times and bad. The UGC would like to thank the Government for the Scheme, and to congratulate all participating institutions on their success."

With an allocation of $1 billion by the Government, a Matching Grant Scheme was first launched in July 2003 to award matching grants to the UGC-funded institutions, which succeeded in securing donations for activities within the ambit of UGC recurrent grants. The eight UGC-funded institutions altogether secured more than $1.3 billion in donations together with the $1 billion in matching funds.

In view of the encouraging response to the First Matching Grant Scheme, the Government provided a further $1 billion in 2005 and another $1 billion in 2006 for introducing the Second Matching Grant Scheme and Third Matching Grant Scheme, when close to $1.9 billion and $1.6 billion respectively of private donations were raised.

Further to strengthening the higher education institutions' fund-raising capabilities and to encourage the growth of a philanthropic culture in the community, the Government allocated $1 billion for launching the Fourth Matching Grant Scheme in January 2008. Apart from the eight UGC-funded institutions, the Scheme also covered, for the first time, Hong Kong Shue Yan University and the Open University of Hong Kong.

The matching grant was disbursed on a dollar-for-dollar matching basis up to the "floor" amount of $45 million, beyond which $1 was granted for every $2 donation, up to a ceiling of $250 million of grant on a first-come-first-served basis. Furthermore, the "floor" amount had been set aside for matching by each institution, as a guaranteed minimum in the first twelve months after the Scheme was open for application. By the end of the twelve-month period, funding under the guaranteed minimum which was not matched by the concerned institutions had been opened up for application by all institutions- also based on the first-come-first-served principle. The $1 billion matching grant was fully allocated by the end of 2008.

Hon Laura Cha said, "Over the past four rounds of the Matching Grant Scheme, institutions have raised some $6.9 billion in private donations and a total of $3.9 billion of matching grants has been allocated. This really is an outstanding achievement. The UGC would like to thank all the people who have made donations to the institutions."

UGC Secretariat

March 17, 2009

Annex

Result of Allocation for the
Fourth Matching Grant Scheme

Institution	Donations $ million	Grants $ million
City University of Hong Kong	54	47
Hong Kong Baptist University	106	74
Lingnan University	28	28
The Chinese University of Hong Kong	727	250
The Hong Kong Institute of Education	28	27
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University	167	101
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	238	135
The University of Hong Kong	697	250
The Open University of Hong Kong	102	70
Hong Kong Shue Yan University	17	17
Total :	2,164	1,000

(Round to the nearest million)

Note:

(1) The $1 billion matching grant was fully allocated by the end of 2008. Donations received in January and February 2009 were not matched.

(2) Figures may not add up due to rounding