HKUST School of Medicine (In Formation), Part I — The Bid Battle, Differentiation Strategy, and Curriculum Design

On 18 November 2025, the Executive Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region formally approved the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) to establish Hong Kong’s third medical school,making HKUST the third university in the city — after the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong (1887) and the Faculty of Medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (1981) — to possess medical-degree-granting capability^※. Over a roughly eight-month three-way contest between HKUST, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), and Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU), HKUST won out on four core strengths: a sharply defined strategic positioning, a broad global outlook, deep integration of medical research with clinical training, and robust financial footing. This Part I unpicks the details of the bid battle, HKUST’s distinctive “technology-driven medicine” positioning, and the architecture of its four-year MBBS programme. The appointment of the founding dean, the groundbreaking ceremony for the Medical Education and Research Complex, and the long-term Ngau Tam Mei master plan are covered inHKUST School of Medicine (In Formation), Part II^※.

---

# 1. Why a third medical school? How large is Hong Kong’s healthcare manpower gap?

Hong Kong’s public healthcare system has for years laboured under the structural strain of a severe doctor shortage.In his October 2024 Policy Address, Chief Executive John Lee Ka‑chiu pledged to expand local medical professional training in response to the shortfall^※ and announced the launch of a recruitment exercise for a third medical school. The city’s two existing medical schools —the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine at HKU (founded 1887) and the CUHK Faculty of Medicine (founded 1981)^※— both offer six-year direct-entry undergraduate programmes and together train roughly 540 medical students each year, well short of the actual demands of Hong Kong’s healthcare system. The Government therefore decided to select a host institution for a third medical school by open competition, convening a Task Group on the Establishment of the Third Medical School in October 2024 to set the assessment criteria and scrutinise the proposals.

---

# 2. What did each of the three universities propose?

On 17 March 2025,HKUST, PolyU and HKBU submitted their proposals to the Task Group on the same day^※, sparking a three-way contest rarely seen in Hong Kong’s higher-education history.

HKUST’s proposal made “technology-driven medicine” its core differentiator.The 150‑page document covered five major areas: innovative strategic positioning, curriculum design and staffing, clinical placements and learning resources, student admissions arrangements, and a sustainable financing model^※. It stressed the direct embedding of artificial intelligence, data science, and robotics technologies into clinical training, aiming to produce “clinician-scientists who understand technology.” HKUST had also pre‑signed more than 20 collaboration agreements with leading medical institutions in Hong Kong, the Greater Bay Area, the United Kingdom and the United States, demonstrating to the assessors that an international clinical network was already taking shape.

PolyU’s proposal was built around “highest cost-effectiveness” and the established bedrock of “engineering-medicine fusion.”PolyU stressed its 45‑year history of healthcare education, its 50 000 healthcare-related alumni, and its 90-plus specialist laboratories and clinical facilities spanning medical imaging, radiotherapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and nursing^※, pledging to bear all financial costs itself before relocating to the Northern Metropolis. PolyU’s advisory board, chaired by Chinese Academy of Engineering academician Zhong Nanshan and 2005 Nobel laureate in physiology Barry Marshall, included 21 members, 16 of whom head prominent medical schools in mainland China.

HKBU’s proposal presented “East‑West medical integration” as its core competitive edge.Drawing on the deep roots of its School of Chinese Medicine and its unique position as the commissioned operator of Hong Kong’s first Chinese Medicine Hospital (scheduled to begin operations in December 2025), HKBU proposed an innovative curriculum pathway that gives “equal emphasis to Eastern and Western medicine”^※, aiming to fuse conventional Western clinical training with the diagnostic and therapeutic traditions of Chinese medicine.

---

# 3. How long did the review take? What criteria did the Task Group use?

The Task Group spent roughly eight months scrutinising the three proposals against a framework of ten principal criteria, spanning innovative strategic positioning, differentiation from the two existing medical schools, ability to recruit high‑calibre international faculty, plans for a modern campus and advanced teaching facilities, arrangements for clinical teaching hospitals and collaboration with healthcare institutions in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area, curriculum architecture and competency‑based assessment methods, and financial sustainability. During the review, the Task Group met with the three universities in stages, subjecting each proposal to in‑depth questioning. The entire bidding cycle — from the submission of proposals in March 2025 to the approval on 18 November — lasted about eight months.

---

# 4. Why did HKUST win? What reasons did officials give?

Announcing the result, Secretary for Health Lo Chung‑mau highlighted HKUST’s pre‑eminence in “innovative strategic positioning,” stressing that HKUST “has a very clear strategic positioning and a very broad global vision,” which would give it a definite advantage in recruiting faculty and students, as well as an obvious research edge^※. Lo boiled down HKUST’s winning case to four strengths: a sharply defined strategic positioning, deep integration of medicine with research and development, a broad global outlook, and relatively abundant financial resources.

The table below sets out the principal differences among the three proposals:

The responses from PolyU and HKBU were relatively measured.PolyU issued a statement saying it was “disappointed not to have been selected to establish the third medical school, but fully respects the Government’s decision”^※; its President, Teng Jin‑guang, offered the adage “failure is the mother of success” by way of encouragement.HKBU, through its Council and Court Chairman Dr. Wilfred Wong Ying‑wai, extended congratulations to HKUST^※; its President, Professor Alexander Wai Ping‑kong, said HKBU would continue to dedicate itself to biomedical research, healthcare professional training and clinical service, and to run Hong Kong’s first Chinese Medicine Hospital to the full.

---

# 5. Where does HKUST’s “technology-driven medicine” differentiation come from?

The central differentiating idea behind HKUST’s School of Medicine lies in its “technology-driven” orientation. According to HKUST, the new school willfully leverage HKUST’s strengths in data science, artificial intelligence and robotics, embedding these technologies directly into clinical training^※. This positioning is anything but hollow; it rests on HKUST’s existing hard capabilities:

• The AI pillar – The von Neumann Institute (VNI), established in 2025, has explicitly designated “health and medicine” as one of its key AI research directions (seeRobotics & AI^※), and can serve as the AI technology pillar for the medical school.
• Neuroscience track record – HKUST’s State Key Laboratory of Molecular Neuroscience has already achieved landmark results in areas such as blood‑based diagnostics for Alzheimer’s disease (seeKey Laboratories & Research Institutes (Part I)^※ andLandmark Discoveries & Signature Research Areas^※), laying the groundwork for the medical school’s neuroscience direction.
• Robotics capability – The medical/surgical robotics capability within the Cheng Kar‑shun Robotics Institute can dovetail with clinical training and research (seeRobotics & AI^※).

In other words, the logic behind HKUST’s entry into medicine is not to compete head‑to‑head with HKU and CUHK in conventional clinical medicine, but to carve out a distinct “tech plus medicine” pathway — marrying its established leads in AI, data science and robotics with a fresh medical education offering to breed “doctors who are fluent in technology.” In institutional-narrative terms, this is wholly consistent with HKUST’s long‑standing “don’t duplicate, create” ethos: as the city’s third medical school, it refrains from reproducing the model of its two predecessors, blazing instead a new trail of “tech‑medicine.”

---

# 6. What makes HKUST’s MBBS programme different from those at HKU and CUHK?

The HKUST School of Medicine (SMED)will offer a four‑year, graduate‑entry (second‑entry) Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) programme^※, in contrast to the six‑year direct-entry MBBS programmes at HKU and CUHK. Applicants must hold a bachelor’s degree in a science, engineering or healthcare-related discipline, and must submit MCAT or GAMSAT scores obtained within the two years preceding application. This “second-degree” positioning shifts the school’s intake pool from recent secondary‑school leavers to university graduates who already possess disciplinary depth, making it easier to recruit interdisciplinary talent already versed in scientific research thinking and familiar with AI and data science.

# Phases of the curriculum

# Six Integrated Longitudinal Themes

The curriculum is threaded through all four years by six longitudinal themes: Evidence‑based Medicine and Precision Medicine; Technology, AI, Innovation and Entrepreneurship; Professionalism, Ethics and Humanism; Healthcare Quality, Safety and High Performance; Health Policy, Economics and Management; Public Health and Global Health Security. Among these, the “Technology, AI, Innovation and Entrepreneurship” theme most vividly captures HKUST’s divergence from the HKU and CUHK models. The programme also offers intercalated Master’s/PhD options, supporting the cultivation of academic clinicians.

---

# 7. How many students in the first cohort? When does it start? What proportion are non‑locals?

According toan SCMP report^※, the intake arrangements for HKUST’s School of Medicine are as follows:

HKUST plans to open global applications in 2027 or earlier; applicants may come from Hong Kong, mainland China or overseas. The inaugural cohort of 50 students will begin classes in the new Clear Water Bay medical building once construction is finished in mid‑2028. (For details of the building project seeHKUST School of Medicine (In Formation), Part II^※.)

---

# 8. What does this victory mean? How will Hong Kong’s medical landscape change?

The approval of HKUST’s School of Medicine marks the first structural expansion of Hong Kong’s medical education scene in 44 years — ever since CUHK’s Faculty of Medicine was founded in 1981, the city has had only two medical schools.In his approval statement, Chief Executive John Lee noted that the third medical school “will work closely with the two existing medical schools, complementing each other’s strengths, to enhance Hong Kong’s research and medical education levels and to respond to the nation’s goal of building a strong education country”^※.

For HKUST itself, the green light for a medical school constitutes one of the most significant disciplinary expansions since its founding in 1991, advancing it from a comprehensive university centred on engineering and science toward one that spans medicine, engineering, science and business. By injecting its established strengths in AI, data science and robotics into medical education, HKUST is pioneering a “technology-driven medicine” pathway. If this differentiated positioning can be executed, it will open up a new track aimed at producing “clinician‑scientists,” up‑ending the traditional‑clinical‑training market long dominated by HKU and CUHK, and giving HKUST a unique seat in the healthcare‑innovation ecosystem of the Greater Bay Area.

N.B. The intake plans, curriculum architecture and bid‑race details presented in this article are current as of the dates of the cited sources and are time-sensitive; arrangements will continue to be updated. Always consult the latest official HKUST announcements before citing.

---

Continued inHKUST School of Medicine (In Formation), Part II — Founding Dean, Groundbreaking of the Medical Education Complex, and the Long‑term Ngau Tam Mei Plan^※: Professor Li Jing appointed as the founding dean; the approximately HK$2 billion Medical Education and Research Complex breaks ground; 40 international clinical collaboration agreements; and the two‑phase roadmap for the permanent Ngau Tam Mei campus.

---