Pre-History and Naming — The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

HKUST is often called Hong Kong's "third university." Behind that label lies a history of rapid economic transformation in 1980s Hong Kong that demanded an expansion of higher education. This article traces the full pre-history before the University formally opened in 1991: why did Hong Kong need a third university in the 1980s? Who led the planning? Why was Clear Water Bay chosen, and why "University of Science and Technology" rather than "Polytechnic"? How significant, really, was the Hong Kong Jockey Club's enormous donation that underpinned the campus? And what role did founding president Woo Chia-wei play? This piece can be read alongside the university's history timeline^※; here the focus is the deeper question of "why it was built, who built it, what it was built on, and how it came to be named."

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# 1. The Times: A Service Economy Calls for a "Third University"

During the 1970s and 1980s, Hong Kong's economy underwent rapid transformation, shifting from traditional labour-intensive manufacturing toward services and a knowledge economy. At the time, the city had only two government-funded universities: The University of Hong Kong (founded 1911) and The Chinese University of Hong Kong (founded 1963). According to the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust's account^※, in the late 1980s there was a broad expectation that an increasingly service-based economy would generate strong demand for university graduates^※.

Governor Sir Edward Youde and Legislative Councillor Sir Sze-Yuen Chung, among others, argued that Hong Kong needed a new university centred on science and technology research to support the economic transition and supply enough graduates^※. The government judged that HKU and CUHK alone could not meet the coming surge in demand for science and technology talent. A distinct, research-led technological university would both fill that gap in tertiary education and give Hong Kong a globally oriented research brand.

A detail frequently cited: according to Wikipedia^※, HKUST was Hong Kong's first university "established without a predecessor institution"^※ — it was not upgraded from a post-secondary college but planned from scratch, a "new city on flat ground." This has become the historical starting point of the University's "creating, not replicating" spirit.

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# 2. The Planning Years (1986–1991)

# 1986: Formal Project Approval and the Preparatory Committee

In March 1986, the Hong Kong government formally announced the establishment of a third university, with science, technology, engineering, and business administration as its core disciplines^※. In September that year, the "Preparatory Committee for the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology" was formally established^※, chaired by Sir Sze-Yuen Chung. The committee held six meetings, making key decisions on the university's name, site, architectural design, academic structure, and administrative framework.

The University's creation owes an enormous debt to the man it calls its "key founder." According to HKUST's memorial notice, Chung served as chairman of the Preparatory Committee during the founding phase and, after the University opened, became its first Council Chairman^※ (for terms of office see Governance and Vice-Chancellors (Part 2)^※). The committee shouldered a series of foundational decisions — site selection, naming, academic structure, and administrative framework. Chung, a towering figure in Hong Kong industry and public affairs, lent the new university crucial credibility and organisational muscle in winning government support, community donations, and academic resources — he had earlier helped push through the establishment of what became PolyU and CityU, making him a central policy figure in Hong Kong's era of tertiary expansion. Without a "key founder" of this weight to hold things together, the ambition of building from zero with holistic planning would have struggled to take ground.

# The Naming Process

According to official records, between 1986 and 1988 the Preparatory Committee settled on the name "The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology" (HKUST)^※, abbreviated HKUST, and colloquially "UST" (科大) in Cantonese, or simply "UST" in English on campus. The deliberate use of "Science" rather than "Polytechnic" was meant to signal a research-university identity, distinguishing it from the vocational orientation of the contemporaneous Hong Kong Polytechnic (later upgraded to The Hong Kong Polytechnic University) — the deeper meaning of that choice is explored in Section 5 below.

# 1987: The Jockey Club Announces Its Major Gift

In June 1987, the Hong Kong Jockey Club announced a donation of HK$1.5 billion specifically for the construction of the Clear Water Bay campus^※. At the time it was the largest single education donation in Hong Kong's history, laying the financial foundation for the campus's construction (the full story of the gift and its legacy is in Section 4 below). The Club later commissioned Irish sculptors Charles and Joan Walsh-Smith to create the famous Red Bird sundial, installed at the entrance plaza (see Motto, Emblem and Campus Icons^※).

# Choosing Clear Water Bay

HKUST was eventually sited at Tai Po Tsai (大埔仔), on the Clear Water Bay peninsula in Sai Kung District, New Territories. The site is ringed on three sides by hills and faces the sea, adjoining Tolo Harbour, with wide views and distinctive natural scenery — a coastal site of about 60 hectares (150 acres)^※. It sits no more than a 30-minute drive from the central urban area (Tsim Sha Tsui), offering both a relatively secluded academic environment and ready access to the city. This secluded, sloping coastal land, available for holistic planning, allowed HKUST to design its campus from scratch to suit the needs of a research university (the hills-and-sea geography is covered in Landmark Buildings and Public Art^※); it is also worth noting that the land had earlier served military and other purposes — this museum has more in Landmark Legends and Campus Lore^※.

# 1988: Woo Chia-wei Appointed Founding President; Groundbreaking

In September 1988, Prof. Chia-Wei Woo was formally appointed founding president of HKUST^※. In November of the same year, the groundbreaking ceremony for the Clear Water Bay campus was held^※, marking the formal start of construction.

# 1989: A Prince's Inscription

On 8 November 1989, Charles, Prince of Wales, visited Clear Water Bay to inscribe the campus foundation stone^※, a sign of the British royal family's regard for the new university.

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# 3. Founding President Woo Chia-wei: Life and Legacy

# Early Years and Academic Career

Woo Chia-wei was born in Shanghai in 1937 and grew up in Hong Kong^※. He completed his higher education in the United States, earning a bachelor's degree in physics and mathematics from Georgetown College, then a master's and doctorate in physics from Washington University in St. Louis, and finishing postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Diego. He began his teaching career at Northwestern University, rising quickly to chair of the physics department, before moving to UC San Diego as Provost. In 1983, at just 45, Woo became president of San Francisco State University — the first Chinese-American to head a major American university^※.

# Returning to Hong Kong to Build HKUST

After more than 30 years working in the United States, Woo was called back to Hong Kong in the early 1980s to join the Preparatory Committee^※, and formally took up the presidency in 1988. His educational philosophy was simple: "Creating, not replicating." He was convinced that only first-rate faculty could nurture first-rate graduates, and he recruited leading scholars from around the world to that end.

Under his leadership, HKUST opened in October 1991 — three years ahead of the original 1994 target^※, setting a record for speed in Hong Kong's higher-education construction history. By the time the first cohort arrived, several schools were already operating and the faculty was substantial.

During his tenure he established a research-centred identity, spanning science, engineering, business and management, and humanities and social science; in 1999 he helped found the Peking University–HKUST Shenzhen-Hong Kong Institution; and in 2001 he advanced medical research collaboration with Shenzhen. Woo led HKUST until 2001 — a decade that took the University from nothing to international renown^※ (for the full line of vice-chancellors, see Governance and Vice-Chancellors (Part 1)^※).

# Passing

Woo Chia-wei died in Hong Kong on 19 March 2025, aged 87^※. The University issued a memorial notice calling him "the embodiment of the HKUST spirit," and Hong Kong's Chief Executive attended the memorial.

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# 4. The Jockey Club's Foundational Gift: Over HK$1.9 Billion, 1987–1992

If the Preparatory Committee settled "who would build," the answer to "what it would be built on" was the Hong Kong Jockey Club.

According to the Jockey Club Charities Trust's official account^※, in building Hong Kong's "third university" the Club donated more than HK$1.9 billion between 1987 and 1992^※ (see also Wikipedia's entry on the Jockey Club^※). It was one of the largest single education gifts in Hong Kong's history.

A note on the numbers: HKUST's official milestones page records the Jockey Club's first 1987 donation as HK$1.5 billion^※ (earmarked for the Clear Water Bay campus), while the Club itself records "over HK$1.9 billion" as the cumulative gift across the entire 1987–1992 construction period^※. The two figures use different baselines (single gift vs. cumulative; launch vs. full period) and do not contradict each other. This museum presents both and lets readers judge by source; before citing a specific figure, please return to the original source to check which basis is being used.

The significance of the gift went far beyond the money. It established a deep and lasting bond between the Jockey Club and HKUST — from the original campus construction and the commission of the Red Bird sundial, to the 2013 naming of the Institute for Advanced Study as the "HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study"^※, the Club's name runs through more than three decades of the University's development (for the broader naming story, see Donors and Naming^※). In the University's own founding narrative, achievements from early research breakthroughs published in Nature to the Kellogg-HKUST EMBA's world rankings are frequently invoked as the payoff on the Jockey Club's heavy bet on the research-university vision.

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# 5. The Deeper Meaning of "Science": A Statement of Positioning

Look again at the University's name — "University of Science and Technology" rather than "Polytechnic." The choice of that one word was not casual; it was a deliberate declaration of institutional identity, and its effects persist today.

In the British higher-education tradition, "Polytechnic" tends to be associated with vocational, applied, teaching-oriented institutions (like the contemporaneous Hong Kong Polytechnic); the "Science" in "University of Science and Technology," by contrast, points explicitly to fundamental scientific research and a research-university identity. The Preparatory Committee deliberately chose the latter — a declaration at the very founding that this would be a university built on research, benchmarked against the world's leading research institutions (along the lines of the American model of MIT and Caltech), not an upgraded vocational college.

The naming choice echoed the founding president's "creating, not replicating" philosophy, and it tracks the University's subsequent trajectory with remarkable consistency:

• It explains why HKUST was eager, from its first decade, to get into Nature (e.g. the world's thinnest carbon nanotube in 2000; see HKUST "Firsts" and Major Achievements^※) — breakthroughs in fundamental research are the realisation of the name "Science";
• It explains why HKUST has long excelled in rankings on research indicators (such as citation impact and per-capita research output), and repeatedly features high in the young-university rankings (see Overall Rankings^※ and Hong Kong's Tertiary Landscape Compared^※);
• And it compounds with HKUST's unusual status of having "no predecessor, built from flat ground" — free of any inherited vocational baggage, the University could design itself from the outset as a pure research university.

An often-overlooked comparison: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) and City University of Hong Kong (CityU) have no "Polytechnic" in their English names today (both "renamed" the polytechnic label away in 1994), but each grew out of a polytechnic / city polytechnic — the path of upgrading from vocational education. Only HKUST went straight to "Science and Technology," building itself within a research framework from day one. This difference in naming is the earliest and most condensed expression of HKUST's "research DNA." In that sense, the "Science" in "UST" carries far more than a disciplinary label — it is a statement of an institutional philosophy.

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# 6. Opening Day and a Summary: A University's "Three Cornerstones"

On 2 October 1991, the University formally opened, welcoming its first cohort of about 560 undergraduates and 140 postgraduates^※. On 10 October that year, Governor Sir David Wilson presided over the formal opening ceremony^※, declaring Hong Kong's third university well and truly on the historical stage.

Lay the three threads of the pre-history side by side, and HKUST's birth can be summed up as the stacking of "three cornerstones":

1. The needs of the times — the 1980s shift to a service economy created strong demand for science and technology talent, providing the internal impetus to found the University;
2. Human orchestration — the Preparatory Committee, led by Sir Sze-Yuen Chung, turned the policy intention of "building a third university" into an executable plan of site, name, and structure;
3. Material foundation — the Hong Kong Jockey Club's foundational gift of over HK$1.9 billion provided the material basis for the Clear Water Bay campus to rise from the ground.

All three were indispensable. The opening of that seaside campus in October 1991 was precisely the result of these three cornerstones stacked together. What repays closer reflection is the relationship between the three — they did not operate independently but reinforced one another. Without the needs of the times — the economic transformation of the 1980s — the government had no motive to plan a third university; without a "key founder" of Sir Sze-Yuen Chung's weight to orchestrate, the policy intention could hardly have become an executable plan; and without the Jockey Club's foundational gift of over HK$1.9 billion, the best blueprint could scarcely have materialised within three years as a campus rising from the Clear Water Bay hillside. The three interlocked to bring a research university with "no predecessor, built from flat ground" into being within a few short years — a remarkably fast establishment by world standards.

This pre-history also provides the key to many of HKUST's later characteristics. First, the founding purpose of "serving Hong Kong's economic transformation" explains why the University has had a strong practical and entrepreneurial orientation from the very start — from the airport wind-shear warning system (see HKUST "Firsts" and Major Achievements^※) to spin-offs like DJI (see Research Output and Start-ups^※), HKUST has always been ready to tie research to industry and to Hong Kong's practical needs. Second, the starting point of "no predecessor, holistic planning" explains why the University has dared to experiment with "creating, not replicating" institutional innovation in governance, curriculum, and even the Guangzhou campus's "hub–thrust" architecture (see The Complete Map of the Guangzhou Campus's "Four Hubs, Sixteen Thrusts"^※) — because it never had an inherited history to accommodate. Third, the deep involvement of the Jockey Club and other social forces established the University's tradition of development supported by community donations (see Lee Shau Kee's HK$400 Million Gift^※ and Donors and Naming^※).

In short, HKUST was no lucky upstart. It was the product of needs, orchestration, and social capital converging precisely at a particular historical juncture in the late 1980s. Understand this pre-history, and the inner logic of the young university's many later "leapfrog" achievements becomes easy to grasp.

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