Dear Colleagues, Students and Alumni,
The excitement of university ranking has dominated the conversation on the campus again. What is more exciting in the latest report by the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) is the fact that HKU ranked 39th overall among the top 200 universities in the world, and 9th outside of North America and Europe.
Although we are generally cautious, if not skeptical, with league tables, I feel rather encouraged on this occasion for a number of reasons.
1. The Times has an established, excellent track record in ranking UK universities for a decade, and its Good University Guide is held in high regard by students, parents and educationalists around the world.
2. Our high ranking in this particular league table can be accounted for by our high scores in two areas: Research impact measured by citations per academic staff in international refereed journals and the international orientation of our staff community. The former measure, in my opinion, is widely accepted and sufficiently objective and indeed reflects the tremendous research efforts and contributions by our colleagues in recent years. The latter measure reminds us of the importance of our ability to recruit, and to retain, the best academics from all parts of the world.
3. The timing of this report cannot be better because we just returned from our tour of four cities in North America last week, meeting with our alumni and friends, visiting our partner universities to strengthen our student exchange programs and speaking to the local community. There, the image of HKU is definitely reinforced.
Of course, the ranking scores also indicate that we could do better in some other areas, especially in attracting international students. The Senior Management Team has formulated action and operational plans to achieve the strategic aim of significantly expanding our international student population in the coming few years. We need support from Faculties, departments and individual members of the University community, as well as the Government and the community at large in this endeavour.
The ranking event indeed provides an opportunity for me to thank all of you for your contributions to the success of the University. I am confident that as long as we continue to work hard, we will attain further successes that cannot be easily measured even by the best designed league tables.
Yours sincerely,
Professor Lap-Chee Tsui
Vice-Chancellor
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