HONG KONG ACADEMICS IN MINORITY ON CAMPUS
Emigration wave and retirements have caused share of local scholars to drop, with mainlanders filling vacancies, university vice-president says
The proportion of scholars from Hong Kong among academic staff at the city’s public universities has fallen behind that of counterparts from the mainland and the rest of the world for the first time in recent decades.
A university vice-president attributed the shift to the citywide emigration wave and recent retirements from a generation of baby boomers born in the 1960s, saying vacancies were mainly filled by mainlanders who found the research environment in Western countries somewhat hostile amid heightened geopolitical tensions.
Data from the University Grants Committee, which allocates funding to the institutions, puts the academic staff population in three categories: Hong Kong, the mainland and the rest of the world.
The number of scholars from Hong Kong stood at 1,659 in all the eight publicly funded universities in the current academic year, down from 1,924 in 2018-19. They accounted for 30.7 per cent of the total academic population, compared with 40 per cent in 2018-19 when they were the largest group.
Only two of the universities employed more mainland academics than their local counterparts in 2018-19. But now, mainlanders outnumber locals at six universities – with Baptist University and the Education University of Hong Kong the two where they do not account for the largest share.
The universities employed 2,070 academics from the mainland in the current school year, or 38.3 per cent of all recruits.
Those from the mainland have accounted for the largest portion of the academic staff pool in public universities for the past two years, jumping 70 per cent in the latest count compared with levels in 2018-19.
Most were employed by science departments, followed by those in engineering and technology as well as business and management.
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Lingnan University have the biggest proportion of mainland academics, while Baptist University has the smallest.
The number of academic staff from the rest of the world stood at 1,664, or 30.8 per cent of the total, in the current school year, slightly higher than the figure for locals.
The data excluded those employed on short-term contracts of less than one year in length.
Joshua Mok Ka-ho, vicepresident of Lingnan University, said some academic staff had left the city in recent years amid the emigration wave and others retired.
“Some local academics indeed left Hong Kong in recent years, and those born in the baby boomer years of the 1960s have now retired,” he said, as the retirement age for most academic staff in public universities was 60.
The turnover rate for academics at the eight publicly funded universities reached 7.6 per cent in the previous academic year, the highest in more than two decades, with 380 leaving their jobs, according to official data.
Mok said the vacancies, and new roles created after recent developments undertaken by some local universities, were mainly filled by mainland academics who had overseas experience.
“Most of them have their research published in journals and are highly cited. Their academic backgrounds are also very strong,” he said.
Mok added their skills could help the universities perform better in research, which could help secure more funding.
“Most of the academics who are now good at writing research papers and have an overseas background are Indian or Chinese.”
Mok pointed out some of them originally worked at US universities but eventually switched to Hong Kong because of concerns over geopolitics.
“The US-China relations have been tense in recent years. They found their research environment was quite unfavourable and even hostile towards them, as they might even be seen as doing something related to state secrets,” he said.
Some local academics indeed left Hong Kong in recent years, and those born in the baby boomer years … have now retired
JOSHUA MOK, ACADEMIC