HKUST Wins Hong Kong's "Third Medical School" Bid (November 2025)—Triumph Over PolyU and HKBU in a Contest of Proposals

The headline in one sentence: On 18 November 2025, the Executive Council approved The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) to establish Hong Kong's third medical school, prevailing in a ten-criteria contest against PolyU and HKBU, with the first intake of around 50 students planned for the 2028/29 academic year.

The last time Hong Kong added a new medical school was 1981, when the CUHK Faculty of Medicine was founded. Forty-four years later, for this new addition, the government did not "anoint" a candidate but staged an open bidding process—an invitation letter sent to eight UGC-funded universities, three proposals each running to over a hundred pages, a task group comprising medical sector and government representatives, ten scoring criteria set down on paper, and a final decision made by the Chief Executive-in-Council. This page does not reiterate what HKUST's medical school "will do" (that falls under the scope of HKUST School of Medicine (in preparation) – Part 1^※ and Part 2^※); instead, it investigates the institutional mechanics of this bidding contest: how the choice was made, on what grounds, and what path the unsuccessful bidders took afterwards.

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# Why Did Hong Kong Use a "Competitive Bid" Instead of "Direct Appointment" to Select the Third Medical School?

The chronic doctor shortage in Hong Kong's public healthcare system is the institutional starting point for this bidding contest. According to the Food and Health Bureau's "Healthcare Manpower Projection 2020," Hong Kong's doctor shortage was projected to persist, reaching a shortfall of approximately 1,610 doctors by 2030 and 1,949 by 2040^※. The same projection showed a highly uneven distribution of public hospital doctors; in the 2020/21 fiscal year, Hong Kong Island West had roughly 1.3 public hospital doctors per 1,000 population, while Kowloon East had only about 0.7. The doctor shortage is a long-term structural issue and the most direct policy driver for this contest.

It was against this backdrop that the Chief Executive, in the October 2024 Policy Address, proposed establishing a third medical school to expand local medical training. The government immediately formed the Task Group on Preparation for the New Medical School in the same month and, in December 2024, sent an invitation letter to several universities funded by the University Grants Committee (UGC)^※, inviting interested parties to submit proposals. Entrusting the right to operate a school to an open bidding process, rather than directly assigning it to a specific institution, is itself an institutional choice: it allows the review panel to make horizontal comparisons across multiple proposals and turns "differentiated positioning" into a hard metric that can be scored.

The births of Hong Kong's previous two medical schools were tied to the needs of their times: the HKU Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine traces its roots back to the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese in 1887, the territory's earliest Western medical training institution; the CUHK Faculty of Medicine was established in 1981 in response to the severe pressure from insufficient local doctor training in the late 1970s. The addition of a third school after forty-four years is another expansion driven by a manpower gap—only this time, the government left the question of "who should run it" to a bidding procedure.

Professor Lo Chung-mau, Secretary for Health, articulated the task group's expectations quite plainly in multiple public statements—he expected the new medical school to adopt an innovative strategic positioning of differentiated development relative to the existing two schools, so as to drive diversification in local medical education and research, in terms of curriculum, student intake sources, and even research programmes. In other words, whoever could prove they were "not a third HKU or CUHK medical school" would be closer to this operating licence. This "differentiation" imperative later became the common theme for all three universities' proposals and explains why the three plans each pushed hard in markedly different directions.

A worthwhile distinction: this new medical school is a publicly funded, four-year graduate-entry programme, whose curriculum must ultimately be accredited by the Medical Council of Hong Kong before it can confer medical qualifications^※. This means the Executive Council's approval is merely "permission to proceed with preparations"; the real gatekeeping power to decide whether graduates can practise medicine remains with the Medical Council—winning the bid is not the finish line, but the starting line of a longer accreditation marathon.

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# Who Was Scoring? The Task Group on Preparation for the New Medical School

The composition of the Task Group on Preparation for the New Medical School determined what kind of professional judgment shaped this contest's scores. According to the government gazette, the task group was co-chaired by the Secretary for Education and the Secretary for Health, with members drawn from multiple professional arenas. Per the Hong Kong Government press release^※, the task group members included:

• Scholars with rich experience in medical education and university management from local, mainland Chinese, and overseas institutions;
• Representatives from the Medical Council of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine;
• Representatives from relevant government policy bureaux and departments;
• Members from the healthcare profession.

This composition carries institutional implications: the presence of Medical Council representatives meant the question "can this curriculum pass future accreditation?" was considered upfront during the evaluation stage. The presence of Hong Kong Academy of Medicine representatives brought post-graduate specialist training pathways into the field of vision. The inclusion of mainland and overseas scholars echoed the government's twin expectations for the new medical school: "global vision" and "Greater Bay Area synergy." Entrusting the decision to such a cross-sectoral task group, rather than a single policy bureau, also made the final choice harder to dismiss as the preference of any one department.

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# What Exactly Are the Ten Assessment Criteria?

The Task Group on Preparation for the New Medical School conducted an "in-depth technical assessment" of the three proposals. The assessment framework consisted of ten main criteria. According to Hong Kong Government news website^※, these ten criteria cover the following dimensions:

This table of criteria is itself a kind of "institutional manual": it breaks the grand question of "who should run a medical school" into ten technical propositions, each of which can be scored. Among them, the first criterion, "Innovative Strategic Positioning," and the seventh, "Funding and Financial Arrangements," later proved decisive in distinguishing the three universities—the former tested "to what degree is this truly differentiated," and the latter tested "how far can you go without public money?"

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# From Submission to Approval: How Long Did This Contest Run?

The task group's assessment was a technical marathon lasting roughly eight months. Piecing together the nodes from public sources yields a clear timeline:

The design of the "two rounds of meetings" is noteworthy—the task group did not score proposals based solely on written documents but conducted in-person Q&A sessions with the three universities in May and June 2025. This dual-track assessment of "written submission plus verbal defence" allowed each bidder to supplement their case in response to panel queries and allowed the reviewers to probe beyond the text and test the true substance of each proposal. From the 17 March deadline to the 18 November decision, the process lasted about eight months, a deliberate pace for a major public decision in Hong Kong.

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# Why Did Only Three of the Eight UGC-funded Universities Enter the Fray?

The task group's invitation letter was sent to all UGC-funded universities, but only three submitted proposals. This "eight in, three out" picture itself illustrates the high threshold for running a medical school. Of the eight funded universities, HKU and CUHK already have medical schools and were excluded from bidding. Among the remaining six, only HKUST, PolyU, and HKBU entered the contest; CityU, Lingnan University, and the Education University did not submit proposals^※.

The reasons for not entering are not difficult to understand. Launching a new medical school requires the simultaneous capacity to attract international faculty, build a viable clinical teaching network, and muster the financial strength to bear massive self-raised capital—most entries in the ten criteria make hard demands on an institution's existing foundation. HKUST relied on its AI and engineering research, PolyU on 45 years of healthcare-related education and 50,000 graduates, and HKBU on its Chinese medicine school and the right to operate Hong Kong's first Chinese medicine hospital. Each of the three held a "uniquely irreplicable" foundation that emboldened them to enter this contest. This also indirectly validates the task group's intent in making "Innovative Strategic Positioning" the first criterion—in Hong Kong, few institutions can run a medical school at all, and fewer still can bring a genuinely differentiated proposition.

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# How Did the Three Proposals Differ in Their Institutional Orientations?

The divergence among the three proposals is the most compelling part of this contest. All three had to answer the same question—how to achieve "differentiated development"—but offered three fundamentally different institutional answers. The following table juxtaposes each university's core orientation (for full details of each plan, see HKUST School of Medicine (in preparation) – Part 1^※; what follows compares only from the angle of "institutional positioning"):

The three orientations correspond to three types of "institutional wagers": HKUST bet on "a blank page is the best canvas"—without the historical baggage of an old medical school, it could more thoroughly fuse technology and medicine from scratch. PolyU bet on its "existing foundation"—forty-five years of healthcare-related education and a massive pool of professional alumni. HKBU bet on its "exclusive licence"—the long-term accumulation of its School of Chinese Medicine and the unique position of operating Hong Kong's first Chinese medicine hospital. The task group ultimately chose HKUST's wager.

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# What Was the Official Reason for Winning? Why Was "Self-Financing" Key?

The core reason the task group selected HKUST was encapsulated quite concisely by Professor Lo Chung-mau, Secretary for Health, on the day of the announcement. He noted that HKUST stood out most prominently on "Innovative Strategic Positioning," with panellists seeing advantages in faculty recruitment, student appeal, and even research. Professor Lo's exact words were:

「策略定位非常清晰、全球视野广阔。」 ("The strategic positioning is very clear, and the global vision is broad.") (Hong Kong Government news website)^※

Among the four repeatedly cited advantages (strategic positioning, medical-research integration, global vision, financial strength), the financial model is the one carrying the most institutional substance. According to the Hong Kong Government press release^※, HKUST committed to self-raising over HK$2 billion to build the medical school's teaching complex on its Clear Water Bay campus, funded through donations and the university's own reserves. On a longer time horizon, HKUST committed over HK$7 billion to the medical school over the next 25 years, with the government providing a nearly one-to-one matching grant—a mechanism where "for every dollar the university puts up, the government matches one dollar," directly converting HKUST's self-financing capacity into a lever for public funds.

On the day itself, HKUST's senior leadership framed "financial self-sufficiency" as a competitive asset in its own right. Per a HK01 report^※, HKUST Council Chairman Harry Shum cited ample institutional reserves, saying HKUST had "not borrowed money or fought for money for all these years" and had full confidence in financially meeting the over HK$7 billion, 25-year commitment; President Nancy Ip stated the university would invest over HK$7 billion over the next 25 years to support the medical school's development. In a contest where "Funding and Financial Arrangements" was explicitly listed as the seventh criterion, "not requiring deficit financing from the public purse" was itself a powerful entry in the bid.

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# After Losing, Where Did PolyU and HKBU Turn?

Losing the bid did not mean the two universities withdrew from the healthcare landscape; rather, each crystallised elements of their proposals into new institutions or directions. The responses from PolyU and HKBU on 18 November 2025 were both restrained and unyielding.

On the PolyU side, according to a PolyU press release^※, the university expressed disappointment at not being selected but fully respected the government's decision. Per an HK01 report^※, President Teng Jin-guang encouraged his team with the saying 「失敗乃成功之母」 ("Failure is the mother of success"), stating they would review the experience of the bid and refine related work; Council Chairman Lam Tai-fai thanked the preparation team for their efforts and hoped they would not be disheartened. PolyU clearly indicated it would continue to leverage its unique strength in "med-engineering integration" to answer society's demand for healthcare professionals—transforming the unsuccessful bid into a continuation of its established strengths in engineering and health sciences education.

On the HKBU side, the most institutionally significant move was this: the entity established during the bidding process was retained. According to an HK01 report^※, President Alexander Wai stated that the Institute for Advanced Translational Medicine, set up during the proposal preparation process, would continue to develop as an advanced R&D centre in medical research and healthcare. Council and Court Chairman Wong Ying-ho remarked that "HKBU will not stop here" and would strive to make Hong Kong an international medical innovation hub. According to a HKBU press release^※, HKBU would continue to promote Chinese medicine development and Chinese-Western medicine collaboration, and work closely with Hong Kong's first Chinese medicine hospital. One bidding contest was over; both unsuccessful universities had rewritten their "unrealised medical school" into research and collaboration platforms that could be activated immediately within their respective domains.

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# What Institutional Hurdles Remain for HKUST After Securing Approval?

The Executive Council's "in-principle approval" is, institutionally, merely opening a door; several more hurdles lie beyond it. The first is the accreditation hurdle: the new medical school's four-year curriculum must be accredited by the Medical Council of Hong Kong for its graduates to obtain local medical qualification. Per the University Grants Committee^※, this publicly funded medical school has its Medical Council accreditation as a prerequisite—meaning the curriculum design cannot only pursue the novelty of "tech-driven differentiation" but must also meet the Medical Council's established standards for clinical competency. How to reconcile the two is the most practical exam question for HKUST over the coming years.

The second is the construction hurdle: the first cohort of students will need classrooms, so HKUST must complete a transitional building on its Clear Water Bay campus by mid-2028 (for progress, see HKUST School of Medicine (in preparation) – Part 2^※; for the institutional reasoning behind the 28 April 2026 groundbreaking ceremony and the "transitional first, permanent later" two-phase approach, see Groundbreaking of HK$2 Billion Medical Complex^※). The third is the faculty and clinical network hurdle: building a clinical teaching faculty from scratch and establishing sufficient hospital placements for clinical rotations—core promises among the ten criteria—must be delivered before students arrive. From this angle, the victory on 18 November 2025 is less an endpoint than the starting gun pushing HKUST onto a multi-year run, with Medical Council accreditation as the final sign-off and the first intake in the 2028/29 academic year as the first milestone.

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# How Does the Medical Sector View HKUST, the "New Face"?

HKUST had never run a medical school before—this was an unavoidable question during the evaluation stage and the most direct query from outsiders upon seeing the result. A comment from a rival institution, yet relatively neutral, came from Professor Fok Tai-fai, former Dean of the CUHK Faculty of Medicine and then Pro-Vice-Chancellor of CUHK.

According to an HK01 report^※, Professor Fok considered the government's decision 「是经过深思熟虑，亦是很正确的决定」 ("a well-considered decision, and a very correct one"). On HKUST's lack of medical training experience, he stated he was "not worried at all"—having been one of the 「开荒牛」 ("pioneer oxen," or trailblazers) who personally witnessed the founding of the CUHK medical school, he had seen the feasibility of a medical school going "from zero to one" and rising into the global top tier. Using the development of minimally invasive surgery as an example, he noted that new things often struggle to thrive within old structures, so HKUST adopting an entirely new framework to undertake the major trend of "med-engineering integration" actually held an advantage. He also specifically mentioned that the fact "the whole university, from top to bottom, unanimously supports establishing a medical school is rare and valuable," relating it to HKUST's longstanding culture of excelling at interdisciplinary collaboration.

This endorsement from a "trailblazer of a previous era" serendipitously addressed the most delicate risk in the contest: whether a science-and-engineering powerhouse with no medical school history could build a competent medical school from scratch. Professor Fok's answer was—precisely because of the absence of historical baggage, it might actually go faster.

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# What Does This Contest Leave Behind at the Institutional Level?

Zooming out, the institutional legacy of this contest operates on three levels. First, it establishes the precedent of "allocating the right to run a school through open competitive bidding"—faced with adding a new medical school for the first time in forty-four years, the government chose to allocate a scarce public educational resource using a comparable, scorable, and accountable bidding procedure, rather than an administrative fiat. Second, it elevates "financial self-sufficiency" into a core indicator of competitiveness—HKUST won with a model of self-raising over HK$7 billion matched nearly 1:1 by the government, providing a template for future publicly-funded higher education projects where "institutional capital leverages public funds." Third, it did not allow the intellectual capital of the unsuccessful bids to go to waste—PolyU's med-engineering integration and HKBU's Institute for Advanced Translational Medicine each found their own footing beyond the contest, objectively diffusing a "single-winner" bidding war into three parallel advances in medical innovation across the universities.

This combination of "competitive allocation, self-financing leverage, and differentiated positioning" also establishes a citable precedent for future public projects: when a scarce public educational resource faces multiple strong contenders, using a scorable, interpellate-able, and accountable process to allocate it withstands scrutiny better than an administrative hand-out. As for whether this process truly selected the "optimal solution," the answer will only be given by time—after the first cohort of graduates exits the exam halls and the permanent campus at Ngau Tam Mei is completed, around 2032.

The institutional bookend returns to the official line repeated throughout. According to the Hong Kong Government news website^※, the Chief Executive-in-Council's in-principle approval for HKUST to proceed with preparations is precisely the endpoint of this roughly eight-month, ten-criteria, two-round-questioning contest—and also the starting line of a longer accreditation and construction marathon. The first cohort of around 50 students will begin in the 2028/29 academic year, with the first graduations not until 2032 (for the campus, dean, and construction progress, see HKUST School of Medicine (in preparation) – Part 2^※).

Note: The task group composition, criteria, timeline, financial figures, and statements from various parties described on this page are as recorded on the source pages and are time-sensitive. Arrangements will be updated continuously; please refer to the latest official announcements before citing.

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