Key Laboratories and Research Institutes (Part I) — The Three State Key Laboratories and the Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study

Since its founding in 1991, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has gradually built up a multi-layered research infrastructure. At its core sit three State Key Laboratories designated by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) of mainland China; the Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is the University's most internationally renowned interdisciplinary flagship. This first part examines these two layers of the research structure; the 15 research institutes, InnoHK centres, CAS joint laboratories and faculty honours such as academicianships and chair professorships are covered in Key Laboratories and Research Institutes (Part II)^※.

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# 1. State Key Laboratories: HKUST's national-level heavyweights

A "State Key Laboratory" (SKL) is a research entity recognised by the Ministry of Science and Technology as representing research capability of national standing within mainland China's science system. Since Hong Kong's return to China, local institutions have been able to establish such bodies under frameworks including the Partner State Key Laboratory scheme — a significant marker of Hong Kong universities' integration into the national innovation system. HKUST is one of the leading Hong Kong universities to hold such national-level designations, and currently operates three State Key Laboratories:

According to HKUST's official announcement^※ and the School of Engineering's overview^※:

Note: Where current senior University leadership is concerned, this archive follows its editorial guidelines in referring to the office rather than the person (see Editorial Guidelines on the Archive Homepage^※). The principal investigator of the State Key Laboratory of Neurological Diseases is the current Vice-Chancellor and President of HKUST; he is identified in this table as "the current Vice-Chancellor and President" accordingly. His academic standing as an internationally renowned neuroscientist, together with honorary and factual records (e.g. academicianships, awards), is documented factually in his biographical entry.

# 1.1 State Key Laboratory of Neurological Diseases (SKLNSD)

This was HKUST's first State Key Laboratory and the first in molecular neuroscience in Hong Kong. According to the University's announcement, it was established in 2009 under the name State Key Laboratory of Molecular Neuroscience^※; this lineage is also recorded in the University History Timeline^※ — the entry noting the laboratory's formal establishment in 2010 refers to this same institution.

According to the reorganisation announcement of February 2025^※, the laboratory now renamed the State Key Laboratory of Neurological Diseases carries out "forward-looking fundamental and translational research," with landmark achievements including a blood-based diagnostic technology for Alzheimer's disease and a whole-brain gene-editing system^※ (specific data on these research breakthroughs are detailed in Landmark Research Breakthroughs and Signature Research Areas^※). Research into neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's is among the life-science directions that have drawn the most international attention to HKUST in recent years — and it dovetails with the University's 2025 approval to establish a new medical school^※ (see Medical School Development^※).

# 1.2 State Key Laboratory of Displays and Opto-Electronics (SKLDOE)

According to the University's announcement, this laboratory was approved in 2013^※ (jointly established with Sun Yat-sen University and initially operating under the Partner State Key Laboratory framework). It was also reorganised in February 2025^※, after which it came fully under the University's independent management, with its English name adjusted accordingly to "State Key Laboratory of Displays and Opto-Electronics." It is co-directed by Prof. Kristiaan NEYTS and Prof. FAN Zhiyong^※. The research focuses on next-generation opto-electronic technologies, artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing; according to the official overview^※, its scope covers perovskite-based opto-electronic materials, organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs), quantum-dot LEDs, augmented/extended reality (AR/XR), 3D displays and flexible sensors^※.

Displays and opto-electronics are a core segment of the electronics-information industry in the Greater Bay Area. The laboratory's research directions (perovskites, quantum dots, XR) align closely with the display-panel and consumer-electronics supply chains running through the Shenzhen–Dongguan–Huizhou corridor, making it a frequently cited vehicle in HKUST's narrative of "serving industrial upgrading in the Greater Bay Area." The laboratory maintains a dedicated website^※ publishing its researchers and outputs.

# 1.3 State Key Laboratory of Climate Resilience of Coastal Cities (SKLCRCC)

This is the youngest of HKUST's three State Key Laboratories. According to the School of Engineering's overview, it was established in 2025^※, jointly by HKUST and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University^※, with Prof. Charles NG Wang-Wai serving as co-director from the HKUST side^※. The research focuses on climate change, extreme weather, resilient infrastructure, compound hazards, coastal engineering and risk management^※, drawing on HKUST's internationally leading geotechnical centrifuge facility for experimental work.

Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Guangzhou — the core cities of the Greater Bay Area — are all coastal mega-cities highly exposed to typhoons, storm surges and sea-level rise. The laboratory's focus on "climate resilience of coastal cities" represents HKUST's effort to bring its accumulated expertise in geotechnical engineering, coastal engineering and climate science to bear on national and regional disaster-prevention and mitigation strategies. The jointly established model also reflects collaboration among Hong Kong universities within the State Key Laboratory framework.

# 1.4 What the "national" designations mean for HKUST — three levels of significance

1. Access to the national research system — State Key Laboratories are designated by the Ministry of Science and Technology, making them a key channel through which Hong Kong universities substantively plug into the national research system and gain access to national-level research resources and collaborative networks. That HKUST titled its announcement "Vote of Confidence" in thanking MOST reflects the weight the University attaches to the designation.
2. National endorsement of disciplinary directions — The three laboratories correspond to neuroscience, optoelectronic displays and climate resilience — precisely the fields where HKUST's School of Science and School of Engineering are most internationally competitive and which best match national and Greater Bay Area strategic needs.
3. The "one body, two wings" research synergy — HKUST's "one body, two wings" structure, comprising the Clear Water Bay campus and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) (see Greater Bay Area and National Role^※), makes it easier for these laboratories' outputs to be translated into industrial applications within the Greater Bay Area.

Note: The laboratory names, establishment years and principal investigators stated in this article follow the source pages cited. State Key Laboratories are subject to name changes, reorganisations and periodic evaluations — the February 2025 reorganisation being one example. Please refer to the latest official HKUST announcements before citing.

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# 2. The Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study (IAS): HKUST's "thinkers' special zone"

The HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is one of the most internationally prestigious academic institutions at HKUST. Modelled on the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, it offers leading scholars a space free from teaching and administrative duties, devoted purely to frontier thinking — in effect, a "special zone for ideas" on the HKUST campus.

# Founding background and the founding director

According to the IAS official milestones page^※, the IAS was established in 2006 as a key initiative of the HKUST Strategic Plan 2005–2020^※. Its founding director was Prof. Paul Chu, then Vice-Chancellor and President (the University's second chief executive and a pioneer of high-temperature superconductivity)^※. Chu himself was an internationally renowned condensed-matter physicist, and the fact that he personally founded and headed the IAS gave the institution from the outset a strong orientation toward "attracting first-rate scientists with first-rate scientists."

# Milestones at a glance

The IAS building is a five-storey landmark structure housing a 200-seat lecture hall, an open atrium, three seminar rooms and around 100 offices^※. Construction funding came jointly from the Hong Kong SAR Government and The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust (for the deeper background, see Pre-Founding History^※). The IAS houses the IAS Centre for Atmospheric Research, the IAS Centre for AI Discovery in Science, the IAS Centre for Fundamental Physics and the IAS Centre for Quantum Matter.

# The Hawking inaugural lecture (15 June 2006)

The event for which the IAS is best remembered is its inaugural lecture, delivered by the cosmologist Stephen Hawking. The full story of that occasion — including the more than 2,200 ticketed audience members, the television broadcast, and Hawking's quips on quantum cosmology and "God playing dice" — is told in detail in HKUST "Firsts" and Major Achievements^※. For a young university then just 15 years old, opening a new research institute with a Hawking lecture was itself a striking declaration of IAS's international ambition.

# An international advisory board thick with Nobel laureates

IAS's academic standing is reflected above all in the composition of its International Advisory Board. According to press reporting^※, the IAS's development is guided by an International Advisory Board chaired by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Prof. C N Yang, with some 15 members, most of them Nobel laureates^※. Around this board, the IAS has over the years organised more than 30 lectures by world-class scientists and Nobel laureates^※. The presence of Nobel laureates as senior visiting members — residing at HKUST for short periods to teach and exchange — is the core mechanism that distinguishes IAS from an ordinary lecture programme.

Note: The specific description of the advisory board's chairmanship and membership comes from the media source cited above (an HKUST 25th-anniversary feature); the IAS official milestones page does not list the board members one by one, and board membership changes over time. Before citing specific names, please refer to the latest directory on the IAS official People page.

# The partnership with the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

The IAS's international standing is also reflected in its formal collaboration with the "home" of the institute model — the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. According to the IAS milestones page^※, by 2009 the HKUST IAS had become one of only three universities in China to have partnered with Princeton's IAS^※. Princeton's IAS is the legendary institution where Einstein and von Neumann once worked, and the original source of the "institute for advanced study" model worldwide. That HKUST's IAS could become its partner is a mark of recognition from the very top of international academia. This lineage is also spiritually continuous with the von Neumann Institute established at HKUST in 2025 — named after the Princeton IAS's legendary figure (see Robotics and Artificial Intelligence^※).

# Naming and recent developments

According to the milestones page^※, on 27 November 2013 the IAS was formally named the HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study^※ — a naming that continued the Jockey Club's deep involvement with HKUST since the University's very founding (the Club donated HK$1.5 billion in 1987 to build the Clear Water Bay campus; see University History Timeline^※ and Donors and Naming^※). In recent years the IAS has deepened its international research collaborations — for example by establishing the IAS-HKUST–Scripps R&D Laboratory^※, linking up with the Scripps Research Institute in the United States on life-science frontiers. On the occasion of HKUST's 35th anniversary (which also marked the IAS's 20th), the IAS reportedly hosted a Nobel Symposium attracting over 450 faculty, students and members of the public^※.

The IAS was also one of the platforms through which HKUST recruited its first Nobel laureate professor — Sir Christopher Pissarides, winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Economics — whose deeper ties to the Institute for Emerging Market Studies (IEMS) are covered in The Cluster of Interdisciplinary Institutes^※.

# Where the IAS sits in HKUST's narrative

In the University's founding narrative, the IAS carries three layers of significance:

1. A reputational lever — through international symbols such as the Hawking inaugural lecture, a Nobel-studded advisory board and the Princeton partnership, a young university rapidly accumulated academic prestige; the IAS is a key element in HKUST's story of "rising by leapfrogging";
2. An interdisciplinary hub — the IAS belongs to no single school but spans science, engineering, business and the humanities and social sciences, providing institutional space for frontier research that cuts across disciplines;
3. An extension of "not copying, but creating" — HKUST did not simply transplant the Princeton model but developed its own system of visiting scholars, lectures and colloquia attuned to Hong Kong's and Asia's position.

Ultimately, the IAS is one of the most successful gambits in HKUST's strategy of "leveraging the small to win big, and building a name through novelty." For a young university without a century of accumulated history, competing head-on with older institutions on "historical depth" is futile; better to position oneself through a "special zone for ideas" open to the world's finest minds, and overtake them on "present-day academic height." The Hawking inaugural, the Nobel-laden advisory board, the Princeton partnership — these international symbols, stacked together, make it impossible for the world to talk about HKUST without reckoning with a university barely three decades old.

Note: The years, persons and collaborations stated in this article follow the source pages cited. IAS programmes, partnerships and personnel are subject to ongoing change; please refer to the latest official IAS announcements before citing.

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Continued in Key Laboratories and Research Institutes (Part II) — The 15 Research Institutes, InnoHK Centres and Faculty Honours^※: HKUST's other 15 interdisciplinary research institutes, InnoHK centres, CAS joint laboratories, plus academician honours, named chair professorships, research awards and named research centres.

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