The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen

Background

CUHK intends to further its goals regarding education in Mainland China and conduct its further development in China with a daily tight relationship of cooperation and combination between Hong Kong and Mainland China.

Shenzhen has experienced rapid transformation from a fishing-town to an international city in recent decades. However, education has become one of the weakest points of the fast-growing metropolis. The foundation of CUHK (SZ) is part of an effort to improve education offerings in the city.

Formal establishment

In October 2009, CUHK started to study opportunities to expand in the Pearl River Delta.

As the policies of Mainland China prohibit foreign institutions, including those in Hong Kong, to independently establish educational institutions in Mainland China, CUHK had to find a partner in Mainland for the establishment of the new campus via the regulation of “Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools”, in which case it signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with the Shenzhen Municipal Government where the two institutions declared their intention to enhance collaboration in education by establishing a CUHK campus in Shenzhen on 6 February 2010. Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China (MoE) approved the plan of the new campus on 11 October 2012. On 19 March 2013, CUHK signed final agreements with Shenzhen University and the government of Shenzhen. The MoE finally approved the establishment of CUHK(SZ) on 26 March 2014.

Teaching

Programmes at CUHK(SZ) are monitored by the senate of CUHK. The senate of CUHK is responsible for the approval of new programmes at CUHK(SZ) before the final decisions made by the MoE.

CUHK degrees will be conferred to students of CUHK(SZ) who meet the requirements of corresponding degree programmes offered there. The certificate of graduation from CUHK(SZ) will be conferred to graduating undergraduate students by MoE.

Research

The university intends to be one of the main drivers of the High Technological Park of Longgang, which is still under government planning. The administration of the campus plans to construct several key-laboratories including:

Robot and intelligent control
Micro-Nano materials and function devices
Biological systems engineering
Genomics and applications
Marine resource exploitation and protection study
Mega-data and logistics study centre
New energy and energy management

Resources

A four-storey temporary library was built pending construction of a permanent library. Many of the printed resources inside the library were sent from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Collegiate system

Inherited from the Hong Kong university, CUHK(SZ) also has a collegiate system. The first college will be named Shaw College as the last donation of money from Run Run Shaw was made for the development of CUHK(SZ).

Schools

The campus is divided into three schools with interdisciplinary programmes run by different schools under the plan of the administration, which is one of the features of CUHK(SZ). The three schools are:

Currently there are eight undergraduate programmes and three postgraduate programmes available for students in the campus.

University officers and council

The Governing Board of CUHK(SZ) administers the school. The chairman of the board is the Vice-Chancellor of CUHK, currently Joseph Sung. The board consists of 16 members, with eight nominated each by CUHK and Shenzhen University respectively. The president of CUHK(SZ) is responsible for the management of CUHK(SZ) under the leadership of the Governing Board. This main structure of administration is chosen due to the limitations of the laws for “Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools”. In 2013, the Governing Board appointed Professor Yangsheng Xu to be the first president of CUHK(SZ).

Student clubs

There are 44 student interest clubs with the official approval from the administration such as Model United Nations, English Animator and Cantonese learning club. There is also an extensive English Club organising over 30 faculty to each hold weekly meetings with a small group of students for the purpose of practice and advancement of English language.

Student Union

The Preparation Council of Student Association (PCSA) started to prepare for the establishment of the Student Union (SU) from December 2014. The SU of Shenzhen campus of CUHK was established on 9 May 2015 by a general election among students inside the campus.

Location

The campus is located in No 2001 Longxiang Boulevard, Longcheng Street, Longgang District, which is in the northeast part of Shenzhen surrounded by mountainous area with distances of around 15 kilometres northeast of downtown Shenzhen.

The site of the campus was formerly that of the cultural park of Universiade held in Shenzhen in 2011. The government of Shenzhen intends to develop an area of international universities based on former site of the Shenzhen Universiade Sports Centre in Longgang inside which CUHK(SZ) has become the first member.

Transport

There are a variety of routes of buses in front of the southwest gate of the campus leading the way to the city centre of Longgang or city centre of Shenzhen.

The nearest subway station is “Universiade”, which is located 1.2 kilometres southeast of the campus. It takes 38 minutes for Longgang Line of Shenzhen Metro to reach “Old Street”, which is regarded as the core centre of Shenzhen. The journey to the checkpoint of “Luohu”, or “Lo Wu” in Cantonese, takes around 45 minutes by subway.

Research

The officers and professors are trying to find opportunities to do cooperated research works with other universities. Several international meetings were held inside the campus such as the High-end Forum on International Engineering Technology held on 15 April 2015.

Exchange programmes

Currently there are summer programmes, exchange programmes and programmes of further studies signed with other universities for students. The partnerships include those with universities in North America, Europe and Asia, such as The University of British Columbia. and Copenhagen Business School. Officers of related departments continue to make effort to create new partnerships with universities around the world.

International organisations

CUHK(SZ) participated in the signing ceremony for the jointly initiated “Shenzhen International Friendship City University League” (SIFCUL), which was initiated by South University of Science and Technology of China, on 9 July 2014 in order to improve internationalisation of the campus and international partnership in academic research with universities in cities belonging to friendship cities of Shenzhen.

On 30 April 2015, the fifth annual Presidents Forum of Worldwide Universities Network convened at the campus.

Admission

School of Management and Economics (SME) of the new campus enrolled its first batch of 315 undergraduate students at the end of August 2014, including two international students. In August 2015, School of Management and Economics (SME) and School of Science and Engineering (SSE) together enrolled 618 undergraduates, including three international students from SME. In early September 2015, the first batch of postgraduate students in the university started their academic programmes, among whom 45 students are from School of Humanities and Social Science (HSS) and another 37 students are from SSE. The administration of the campus plans to enlarge its size of population to 7,500 for undergraduate students and 3,500 for postgraduate students after the primary development of the campus planned to be finished around 2022. Around 15 per cent of the students will be international students according to the plan of the admission office.

Construction

The campus is still under construction with currently 100 acres of area available. Students are temporarily accommodated across the road in Shenzhen Institute of Information Technology before the completion of the construction of dormitories for students of Shaw College, which is planned to be built in August 2016. The first phase of the campus is planned to be finished in 2017 with the second phase at around 2022, after which the total area of the campus will be around 1,500 acres. As a new campus with limited population, physical facilities inside the campus need to be improved, especially the network of the campus such as Wi-Fi system.