A \"Special Intellectual Zone\" Allied with the Princeton IAS — How HKUST Wove a Network of Nobel Laureates

In a sentence: The HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) has been one of three Chinese universities formally partnered with the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton since 2009^※. Through a Nobel laureate advisory board, a network of named professorships, and the UC RUSAL President's Forum, the IAS hosted over 1,900^※ international academic events in its first two decades (2006–2026), making it the densest gathering platform for Nobel laureates in Hong Kong.

# Where did the HKUST IAS come from?

The story of the HKUST Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) began with an unprecedented lecture. On 15 June 2006^※, cosmologist Stephen Hawking travelled to Clear Water Bay to deliver the IAS's inaugural lecture, 「宇宙的起源」 ("The Origin of the Universe"), to an audience of more than 2,200 faculty, students, and members of the public — a sensation across Hong Kong. This was, in an institutional sense, the IAS's birth ceremony. It was immediately embedded as a core agenda item in the HKUST Strategic Plan 2005–2020^※, with the vision of becoming a "special intellectual zone" where the world's leading scholars could intersect freely.

The IAS's founding director was Professor Paul C. W. Chu, then Vice-Chancellor and President of HKUST — himself a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and a pioneering physicist in the field of superconducting materials. More crucially, the IAS was rooted from the outset in the idea of top-level intellectual stewardship: Nobel Physics laureate C. N. Yang （楊振寧） (awarded 1957) served as the founding Chairman of the IAS International Advisory Board^※. His 「智慧與遠見對引導IAS度過最初的挑戰、塑造研究院根基發揮了關鍵作用」 ("wisdom and foresight were instrumental in guiding the IAS through its initial challenges and shaping its foundation"), a role he held until his death in October 2025 at the age of 103.

# How did HKUST become a partner institution of the Princeton IAS?

The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, was founded in 1930. Einstein, von Neumann, and other titans of twentieth-century thought worked there; it remains a global landmark for unfettered academic inquiry. In January 2009, HKUST became one of three Chinese universities to formalise a partnership with the Princeton IAS, and the IAS International Advisory Board held its first meeting on the HKUST campus the same month^※. The University of Hong Kong (HKU) signed its own memorandum with the Princeton IAS on 16 March 2009^※, becoming the second partner university in the arrangement. The agreements aimed to facilitate mutual visits by scholars and the sharing of academic conferences, as well as to provide joint resource support for Chinese scholars travelling to Princeton for research exchanges.

The logic underpinning this partnership structure is straightforward: the Princeton IAS has long been synonymous with frontier research in mathematics, physics, and historical and social sciences, while the HKUST IAS likewise gathers scholars around a model of interdisciplinary, curiosity-driven inquiry. The two institutions share a deep affinity of academic temperament. The connection also operated at the personnel level: Eric Maskin, a Princeton IAS professor, founder of mechanism design theory, and 2007 Nobel laureate in Economics^※, joined the HKUST IAS as a Visiting Member in March 2010, delivering lectures and engaging intensively with faculty and students across multiple disciplines. His presence was a textbook example of the two institutes' relationship translating into substantive scholarly exchange.

# The 2013 naming ceremony: a Nobel scholar network takes shape

On 27 November 2013^※, supported by a philanthropic grant of over HK$71 million from The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust (part of a total Jockey Club contribution to HKUST exceeding HK$2.5 billion^※ over 26 years), the IAS was formally renamed the "HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study." On the same day, three named professorships were announced. This was the single most emblematic moment of talent concentration in the IAS's history.

At the ceremony, HKUST's then Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Tony F. Chan, declared that the IAS's mission was to "advance the University's strengths, promote the development of innovation and technology in Hong Kong, and help establish Hong Kong as a global intellectual hub." The three inaugural named chairs formed the core nodes of HKUST's Nobel laureate network:

Ching W. Tang （鄧青雲） is the first ethnic Chinese winner of the Wolf Prize in Chemistry^※. During 31 years at Kodak Research Laboratories, he invented the high-efficiency OLED technology that underpins modern smartphone and television screens. He joined HKUST in 2013 as the IAS Bank of East Asia Professor, holding joint appointments in the Departments of Electronic & Computer Engineering, Chemistry, and Physics.

# Pissarides: why would a Nobel economist land at HKUST?

Sir Christopher Pissarides （皮薩裏德斯） is the first Nobel laureate ever appointed to a named professorship at HKUST^※, a milestone whose significance goes well beyond a single academic recruitment. He taught at the London School of Economics (LSE) for over 40 years and is a founder of search-and-matching theory. He shared the 2010 Nobel Prize in Economics with Dale Mortensen and Peter Diamond for their contributions to labour market economics, particularly the study of market frictions and unemployment^※. In 2013 — the same year Queen Elizabeth II conferred a knighthood upon him — he accepted the position of IAS Helmut & Anna Pao Sohmen Professor at HKUST.

Pissarides's HKUST affiliation carries a dual significance. First, the labour macroeconomics he represents are directly relevant to the structural challenges facing Hong Kong's workforce, offering world-class academic ballast for local policy research. Second, his IAS chair creates a sustainable mechanism of academic connection: he visits HKUST regularly for public lectures and research forums, introducing the frontiers of international labour economics into Hong Kong's academic context. In 2025, he was further honoured with an honorary doctorate from HKUST.

# Uhlmann's "invisibility cloak mathematics": another dimension of interdisciplinarity

If Pissarides represents the link between the social sciences and the Nobel sphere, Gunther Uhlmann embodies the IAS's capacity to absorb the frontiers of pure mathematics. Uhlmann holds the IAS Si Yuan Professorship and is the world's leading expert on inverse problems^※, investigating wave scattering, partial differential equations, and the mathematical foundations of cloaking technology. In 2003 he proved that two distinct objects can produce identical scattering waves — a result from which physicists subsequently designed real-world "invisibility cloaks," transforming a Harry Potter fantasy into a mathematical theorem.

Uhlmann's research spans applications in geophysical prospecting and medical imaging, illustrating the IAS's founding ethos of "fundamental research linked to regional development." He was awarded the 2021 American Mathematical Society–Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics George David Birkhoff Prize^※, is a member of both the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and holds honorary doctorates from several leading international universities.

# The UC RUSAL President's Forum: bringing Nobel laureates into the public sphere

Another outward-extending node of HKUST's Nobel network is the UC RUSAL President's Forum, launched in 2010. In June 2010, UC RUSAL, the world's largest aluminium producer, signed a five-year cooperative agreement with HKUST with a total sponsorship of US$1.5 million^※ (for the academic years 2010/11 through 2014/15). A core element of the agreement was the creation, under the IAS framework, of this President's Forum, which invites top figures from international politics, business, and academia to deliver public lectures in Hong Kong each semester.

Chaired by HKUST President Professor Tony F. Chan, the Forum opened on 21 September 2010 with an address by UC RUSAL CEO Oleg Deripaska titled 「專注的力量」 ("The Power of Focus"), drawing an audience of more than 3,000. Subsequent speakers have included Nobel laureates: Dan Shechtman, Professor of Materials Science at the Technion and 2011 Nobel laureate in Chemistry, spoke at the Forum on 26 October 2015^※ on the theme of 「技術創業——通往世界和平與繁榮之道」 ("Technological Entrepreneurship — A Path to World Peace and Prosperity"); Nobel economics laureate Pissarides has also delivered lectures under the Forum's banner.

The significance of the UC RUSAL Forum lies in its drawing of IAS-networked scholars out of closed seminar rooms and towards a broader public and student constituency — a literal enactment of the IAS mission statement to 「讓全球最傑出的心靈與香港社會產生催化性交匯」 ("bring the world's most brilliant minds into catalytic encounters with Hong Kong society").

# A constellation of Nobel advisers: from C. N. Yang to Smoot and Maskin

The HKUST IAS Nobel laureate network extends well beyond the three named professorships described above. It is built upon a multi-layered system of scholar affiliations:

Beyond these, the IAS International Advisory Board has at various points included numerous Nobel laureates. Early records indicate that most of the Board's 15 members were Nobel laureates, bringing together figures such as Yuan T. Lee （李遠哲） (Chemistry, 1986), Ferid Murad (Physiology or Medicine, 1998), Douglas Osheroff (Physics, 1996), and Samuel C. C. Ting （丁肇中） (Physics, 1976) — an intellectual density that is extraordinarily rare for any university barely three decades old at the time.

# After 1,900 events: the IAS's place on the global academic map

Between its founding in 2006 and 2026, the IAS has hosted more than 1,900 international academic events^※. In February 2026, it held the IAS Nobel Symposium under the theme 「邊界無垠：探索科學的終極前沿」 ("Horizons Unbound: Exploring the Ultimate Frontiers of Science"), commemorating both HKUST's 35th anniversary and the IAS's 20th^※, bringing together several Nobel physics laureates before an audience of more than 450 faculty, students, and members of the public.

Viewed through the lens of international academic connectivity, the IAS's core competitive strength lies not in ranking metrics, but in the 「稀缺接觸機制」 ("scarcity contact mechanisms") it has constructed. Through a formal partnership pact with the Princeton IAS, a system of named professorships and visiting fellowships, and public-facing platforms such as the UC RUSAL President's Forum, the IAS has enabled HKUST to channel the world's foremost thinkers systematically into Hong Kong's research and public-intellectual ecosystem — rather than relying on scattered, ad-hoc academic visits. This deliberate 「網絡編織」 ("network weaving") is the institutional basis on which HKUST positions itself as a 「思想特區」 ("special intellectual zone") within the Asia-Pacific, rather than merely another research university.