School of Humanities and Social Science — In Depth

The School of Humanities and Social Science (SHSS) at HKUST is the most compact of the University's four schools in scale, yet punches well above its weight in research performance. It houses two academic divisions — the Division of Humanities and the Division of Social Science^※ — spanning more than 15 disciplines, alongside creative-arts offerings in music, writing, and film.

Scale (2024–25): 371 undergraduates, 59 research postgraduates, 339 taught postgraduates — 769 students in total^※.

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# 1. Division of Humanities

# 1.1 Research and teaching orientations

The Division of Humanities concentrates its research and teaching in four broad fields:

1. Linguistics — Chinese linguistics, second-language acquisition, pragmatics, and related areas.
2. Literature, Film, and Media Studies — Chinese- and English-language literatures, Asian cinema, digital media, and cultural theory.
3. History and Anthropology — modern and contemporary Chinese history, Hong Kong history, South China studies, visual culture, and material civilisation.
4. Philosophy and Religion — ethics, comparative religion, epistemology, and political philosophy.

# 1.2 Publications and research standing

Faculty monographs appear with leading academic presses^※ including Cambridge University Press, Columbia University Press, Harvard University Press, Oxford University Press, and Stanford University Press — a strong signal of international scholarly recognition.

The Division runs several visiting-scholar schemes, among them the Harvard-Yenching Visiting Scholars Programme^※, which brings humanities researchers from across Asia to the campus.

# 1.3 Community engagement

The Division reaches beyond academia through Public Humanities Lectures, community heritage initiatives, and service-learning programmes, extending the public impact of its research.

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# 2. Division of Social Science

# 2.1 Origins and scale

The Division of Social Science was established in 1991 alongside HKUST itself^※. It now has roughly 30 faculty members, recruited through open international searches^※, and spans five disciplinary streams:

# 2.2 Research Assessment Exercise standing

According to the University Grants Committee's Research Assessment Exercise 2020 (RAE 2020)^※ — the comprehensive research-quality evaluation covering Hong Kong's eight UGC-funded institutions:

• Social Sciences and Political Science (including public policy & administration and international relations): ranked first in Hong Kong for world-leading research (4*)^※
• Sociology and Anthropology: ranked first in Hong Kong for internationally excellent research (3*)^※

# 2.3 Research centres

The School hosts three major research centres:

1. Center for Chinese Linguistics^※ — devoted to linguistic research on Cantonese, Putonghua, and other Chinese dialects.
2. South China Research Center^※ — focused on the history, culture, and society of the South China region.
3. Global China Center^※ — multi-disciplinary research that situates China within a globalised framework.

In addition, the independently operated Center for Language Education^※ delivers language services university-wide, including English-language enhancement, Putonghua, and courses in other languages.

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# 3. Undergraduate programmes

SHSS currently offers two undergraduate majors:

# 3.1 BSc in Quantitative Social Analysis (QSA)

The BSc in Quantitative Social Analysis launched in 2017^※ as Hong Kong's first undergraduate programme to place quantitative methods at the centre of a social-science degree. The curriculum trains students to analyse social data and to interpret and present the results in business, government, and non-profit settings. Core faculty are drawn from all five disciplinary streams in the Division of Social Science^※, supplemented by cross-departmental methods electives.

# 3.2 BSc in Global China Studies (GCS)

The BSc in Global China Studies launched in 2011^※ and is built around an ELITE educational model — elite, interdisciplinary, language-intensive, global, and interactive. It equips students to analyse cutting-edge China-related issues critically, in a global and 21st-century context, combining humanities and social-science perspectives in partnership with the Division of Humanities.

The programme provides exchange and internship opportunities and maintains links with a number of universities in mainland China and internationally.

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# 4. Postgraduate programmes

# 4.1 Research programmes

Note: MPhil places are normally admitted through an integrated MPhil–PhD track; standalone MPhil applications are not accepted.

# 4.2 Taught programmes

The MA in Social Science (MASS) is a one-year full-time taught programme that provides interdisciplinary social-science training^※ informed by perspectives from Hong Kong and the wider Chinese-speaking world.

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# 5. Division of Public Policy (PPOL)

The Division of Public Policy is administratively closely tied to SHSS but operates independently. It is generally regarded as a university-level, cross-disciplinary policy-research entity.

The Division's research concentrates on three main areas: science, technology and innovation policy; environmental and sustainability policy; and social and urban policy^※.

Programmes:

• Master of Public Policy (MPP)^※: an interdisciplinary taught programme emphasising the impact of technological innovation and professional-skills development.
• Master of Public Management (MPM)^※: focused on leadership and management in the public sector; one year full-time or two years part-time; tuition HK$185,000 (27 credits)^※.
• MPhil/PhD in Public Policy^※: research-oriented, designed for scholars aiming at academic or policy-research careers, with four specialist tracks — science and technology innovation policy, environmental sustainability, social change, and China development policy.

Case development: The Case Development Programme, launched in 2017,^※ has been producing teaching cases on Hong Kong and mainland Chinese public-policy issues, serving both classroom teaching and wider policy discussion.

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# 6. Interdisciplinary courses and the University Common Core

SHSS shoulders the humanities-and-social-science component of the University Common Core — the university-wide general-education requirement — supplying courses in history, philosophy, languages, and culture to undergraduates from all schools. It also provides the pathways through which Engineering, Science, and Business students can take elective humanities and social-science courses.

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# 7. SHSS inside a "science–engineering–business" university

HKUST is often described from the outside as a university resting on a three-legged stool of science, engineering, and business — and SHSS is, in raw size, the smallest of the four schools. Its 769 enrolled students in 2024–25 amount to less than one-tenth of the School of Engineering's intake. Yet this "compact" scale stands in deliberate contrast with its research profile: the Division of Social Science earned the city's highest rating for world-leading (4*) research in Social Sciences and Political Science under RAE 2020, while Humanities faculty monographs appear with Cambridge, Harvard, and Oxford — facts that make clear SHSS is no ornamental "general-education supply unit" but a small academic unit with high research density.

That "small but sharp" positioning explains the School's dual role within HKUST's broader disciplinary map. On one side, it is the principal provider of the Common Core, performing an institutional function that ensures students from science, engineering, and business backgrounds encounter genuine humanities and social-science training. On the other side, it is itself the academic home of distinctive undergraduate majors — Quantitative Social Analysis and Global China Studies — and the parent body for cross-disciplinary policy-research entities like the Division of Public Policy. At a university whose very name foregrounds science and technology, SHSS serves simultaneously as the University's gatekeeper of general education and as an autonomous base for humanities and social-science research. The two roles do not conflict; they reinforce each other. It is precisely because SHSS's research credential stands on its own feet that the Common Core courses it delivers avoid becoming marginal tick-box fillers on a credit tally.

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