Hong Kong Polytechnic University — Department and School Listing (by Faculty)

Module: 01 Academics · Sub-file: Department listing Last updated: 2026-07-02 This file groups PolyU's academic units under seven Faculties + three independent Schools, listing each faculty's constituent departments (学系) and schools/divisions (School / Division). Department affiliations and names follow PolyU's official "Faculties, Schools and College" webpage. For the establishment, positioning and scale of each faculty, see faculties-and-schools.md; for programmes and general education, see programs.md.

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# 1. Faculty of Business

The Faculty of Business is built on three pillars — accounting and finance, logistics and shipping, and management and marketing — with logistics, supply chain and shipping management recognised as long-standing international strengths. Total faculty enrolment: 5,514 students (first semester 2025/26)^※ (per the official at-a-glance page; undergraduate/postgraduate split not given).

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# 2. Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences

This is PolyU's new faculty, created in response to the growth of AI and data science, and comprising the three departments above.

# Background: a faculty that did not exist until 2025

According to PolyU's press release on the Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences launch ceremony^※ and a feature in Pulse@PolyU^※, the University established the Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences in January 2025, gathering the resources and strengths of the Department of Applied Mathematics, the Department of Computing, and the Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (DSAI) under one roof to support the SAR government's drive to enlarge the innovation-and-technology talent pool. The launch ceremony was officiated by the Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry; the University described the new Faculty as its "tenth academic unit." The Faculty's taught postgraduate programmes span emerging fields such as AI and big data computing, blockchain technology, and metaverse technology.

Per the Faculty's recruitment introduction page on PolyU's Human Resources Office site^※, the Faculty was formally established on 1 January 2025, comprising the Department of Applied Mathematics (AMA), the Department of Computing (COMP) and the Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (DSAI). Together they house more than 125 academic staff and 390 research staff, and work closely with the newly created PolyU Academy for AI (PAAI). Since the 2022/23 intake, undergraduate students have been required to complete the "AI and Data Analytics Requirement" (AIDA Requirement); PolyU's College of Undergraduate Studies links this requirement to recognised courses offered by the Faculty — which is why DSAI has become a major supplier of university-wide introductory AI-literacy courses for non-computing students.

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# 3. Faculty of Construction and Environment

Covers civil engineering, building services, building surveying, real estate and geo-informatics; closely tied to Hong Kong's construction and surveying professions.

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# 4. Faculty of Engineering

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# 5. Faculty of Health and Social Sciences

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# 6. Faculty of Humanities

Centred on language, communication, Chinese history and culture, and the intersection of AI with the humanities.

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# 7. Faculty of Science

Built around applied biochemistry, applied physics, and food science and nutrition, continuing PolyU's tradition of "applied science".

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# 8. The Three Independent Schools (parallel to the Faculties)

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# 9. Cross-Faculty / Shared Academic Units

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# 10. Evolution of the Academic Structure: Recent Restructurings

PolyU's academic structure has been reshaped several times. The following landmarks matter most for understanding the present:

# 2022: The School of Fashion and Textiles becomes independent

According to PolyU's September 2022 press release^※, the School of Fashion and Textiles was formally established as an independent School on 1 September 2022, standing alongside the Faculty of Engineering, the School of Design, the School of Hotel and Tourism Management, and others. Its lineage reaches back to the Department of Textile Industries (1957) in the old Hong Kong Polytechnic, and the Institute of Textiles and Clothing (ITC) founded in 1977.

# 2025: The Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences is created

Per the Faculty's recruitment introduction page on PolyU's Human Resources Office site^※, the Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences was established on 1 January 2025, bringing together the Department of Applied Mathematics (AMA), the Department of Computing (COMP) and the Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (DSAI). In other words, it is an organisational arrangement that collects the two established strands of mathematics and computing, together with data science and AI, into a single Faculty.

# The evolution of the Faculty of Humanities

The Faculty of Humanities now houses a "Division of Artificial Intelligence and the Humanities," reflecting PolyU's strategy of embedding AI across humanities teaching and research. The AI-and-humanities crossover is a global trend in universities in recent years, but PolyU's choice to reserve a dedicated Division-level unit within the Faculty of Humanities is comparatively rare among Hong Kong institutions.

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# 11. Student and Staff Numbers at a Glance, by Faculty

Rows marked "estimate" or "directional statement" are not official faculty-level statistics, vary from year to year, and should be checked against either each faculty's official page or the PolyU "PolyU in Figures" page^※ for precise numbers.

University-wide (official): total student population over 32,000^※ (an alternative aggregated figure of 28,410 registered students for 2022/23 appears in ../00-overview/facts-and-figures.md); academic staffing totals follow "PolyU in Figures" and the annual report.

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# 12. International Subject Rankings at a Glance

Per PolyU's official announcement of its QS 2026 subject-ranking results^※ and the ShanghaiRanking (ARWU) subject rankings:

Across all subjects in QS 2026, PolyU placed 5 subjects in the global top 30 and 24 subjects in the top 100^※; the final row ("Computer Science") is an estimate / directional statement — the precise ranking should be checked against QS's official pages.

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# 13. Department-count Snapshot: from Three-Department Faculties to Five

The seven Faculties differ markedly in how many departments they house, from three to five — and the difference itself says something about each Faculty's positioning:

A pattern emerges from this table: department count does not strictly track faculty age — the Computer and Mathematical Sciences Faculty, though a "new" faculty founded in 2025, matches the department count of the long-established Business and Science Faculties; while the Faculties with the most departments, Engineering and Health and Social Sciences (counting its Schools), correspond respectively to PolyU's oldest thread (engineering back to 1937) and its most distinctive one (a health cluster standing in for a medical school).

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# 14. Keywords Hidden in Department Names: a Quick "Guess-the-Faculty" Cheat Sheet

The Chinese names of PolyU departments often carry keywords that point directly to the parent Faculty. Learning this naming convention makes it easy to guess which Faculty an unfamiliar department belongs to:

This keyword-to-faculty mapping is not an official definition; it is an empirical observation this site has drawn from the current names of the 29 academic units. Exceptions exist — the 医疗科技及资讯学系 (Department of Health Technology and Informatics), despite "信息技术" colloquially suggesting computing, belongs not to the Computer and Mathematical Sciences Faculty but to the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences. Treat the table as a first-pass pointer only; precise affiliations should always be checked against the official structure page.

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# 15. Interdisciplinary Research Institutes (non-teaching units): A Brief Directory

Beyond the teaching departments above, PolyU maintains a number of interdisciplinary research institutes (PAIR) and independent research centres. These units do not teach; they focus on research and knowledge transfer. They are covered in detail in ../04-research/institutes-and-labs.md; a bare list for orientation only:

• Research Centre for Deep Space Explorations (RCDSE) — aerospace precision engineering
• Research Institute for Intelligent Wearable Systems — intelligent textiles
• Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) — distributed systems, edge computing
• Research Institute for Advanced Manufacturing — precision manufacturing
• Research Centre for Resources Engineering towards Carbon Neutrality — geological, landslide and flood-hazard mitigation
• Research Institute for Sustainable Urban Development — industrial sustainability

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# 16. The Institutional Difference between a Department (学系) and a School (学院)

PolyU's system uses "Department" and "School" side by side. The distinction is clear in institutional terms, though the two are often confused in casual usage:

The School of Nursing and the School of Optometry are Schools within the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, administratively under FHSS; by contrast, the School of Design, the School of Fashion and Textiles and the School of Hotel and Tourism Management are independent Schools parallel to the Faculties. Both kinds are rendered "学院" in Chinese, but their administrative standing differs — readers should keep this in mind.

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# 17. Frequently Asked Questions

Q1: Which units was the Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences carved out of?

Strictly speaking, it was not "carved out" of anything. According to PolyU's press release on the Faculty's launch ceremony^※, the new Faculty concentrates the resources and strengths of the Department of Applied Mathematics, the Department of Computing, and the Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (DSAI) under one Faculty; the Faculty's recruitment introduction page on PolyU's Human Resources Office site^※ gives the establishment date as 1 January 2025. The new Faculty stands alongside the other seven Faculties as PolyU's eighth.

Q2: Does PolyU have a Computer Science department? What is the difference between DSAI and the Department of Computing?

Both belong to the Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, but with different emphases. The Department of Computing has the longer history, with programmes leaning towards software engineering, systems and networks, and information security; the Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (DSAI) focuses on data science, machine learning and AI applications, offering the BSc in Data Science and AI and the MSc in Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Computing, among others (per DSAI's official department page^※). The two departments share Faculty resources, and students may take courses across both.

Q3: PolyU has no "medical school" — which departments carry its health-related disciplines?

PolyU currently has no medical school; its health professions are served by departments and Schools within the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences (FHSS): the School of Nursing (turning out nurses), the School of Optometry (the only provider of optometry degrees in Hong Kong), the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences (physiotherapy and occupational therapy), the Department of Health Technology and Informatics (medical laboratory and radiography professionals), and the Department of Applied Social Sciences (social work and psychology). See health-sciences.md for details.

Q4: Do individual departments maintain their own research groups?

Most departments organise their research into themed groups (Research Groups or Research Themes). The Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, for example, runs themes in precision engineering, smart manufacturing and sustainable systems; the Department of Computing covers data management and mining, distributed computing and cybersecurity. Each department's official page is the authoritative source for its specific research groups; university-level interdisciplinary research platforms are covered in ../04-research/institutes-and-labs.md.

Q5: What is the difference between a "Division" and a "Department"? Where does PolyU use "Division"?

A Division occupies a level between a Faculty and a Department (or sits alongside departments), and is uncommon at PolyU. Currently only the Faculty of Humanities has one — the Division of Artificial Intelligence and the Humanities — a structural experiment in embedding AI into humanities teaching and research: a Division-level unit can push interdisciplinary crossover without the institutional rigidification of creating a new department. Every other Faculty uses departments (学系) or Schools (学部) as its basic units.

Q6: When did the School of Fashion and Textiles become independent? Which unit did it belong to before?

According to PolyU's September 2022 press release^※, the School of Fashion and Textiles was formally established as an independent School parallel to the Faculties on 1 September 2022. Its lineage traces to the Department of Textile Industries (1957) and, through several restructurings (including the absorption of the 1977 Institute of Textiles and Clothing, ITC), it sat within the former Faculty of Applied Science and Textiles framework before independence. Since then it has coordinated its own programmes in fashion design, textile technology and fashion communication.

Q7: Some departments' Chinese and English names do not match word-for-word. Is that a typo on this site?

No. Several PolyU department names are not literal translations. For example, 「电子计算学系」 corresponds to the English "Department of Computing," not a word-for-word "Electronic Computing"; 「屋宇设备工程学系」 corresponds to "Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering," which renders more literally as “building environment and energy engineering.” These naming gaps are common throughout PolyU's public materials; this article follows the Chinese-English pairings published on the official academic structure page and does not "correct" or re-render them.

Q8: Of the 29 academic units, which are single-discipline and which genuinely span multiple disciplines?

Most department names map straightforwardly onto a single discipline (e.g. the Department of Applied Physics, the Department of Food Science and Nutrition). But there are clear multi-disciplinary exceptions: the Department of Health Technology and Informatics trains students for three distinct career tracks — medical laboratory science, diagnostic radiography and health informatics; the Department of Applied Social Sciences spans social work, psychology and criminology, related fields with distinct training systems; and the Faculty of Humanities' Department of Language Science and Technology houses traditional linguistics alongside computational linguistics and speech technology. Such multi-discipline mergers partly reflect a PolyU tendency to group at department level by application context rather than by pure disciplinary logic — asking “what kind of professional are we producing?” before deciding which department should house it, rather than carving by subject taxonomy first.

Q9: Do the three independent Schools subdivide further into "departments"?

Some do, but not always under the name "Department." The School of Design, for instance, is internally organised into discipline groups (communication design, product design, environment and interior design, etc.), yet the official structure page does not list these as separate departments — the School appears as a single unit in the structure table. The School of Hotel and Tourism Management and the School of Fashion and Textiles follow a similar pattern. In other words, the institutional logic is not fully symmetrical: an independent School's internal groupings are more flexible, and the official academic structure page generally presents only down to the "School" level without enumerating internal discipline groups.

Q10: The department list differs slightly between the official website, Wikipedia and this page. Which should I trust?

Follow the current "Faculties, Schools and College" page on PolyU's official website as the sole authoritative reference. Encyclopaedic sources such as Wikipedia often retain old faculty names (e.g. "Faculty of Applied Science and Textiles") or lag behind the latest restructurings (e.g. the 2025 creation of the Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences). This article cross-checks multiple sources where possible, but department affiliations are "live data" that change from year to year: if you find any discrepancy between this page and the official website, defer to the official site — and by all means flag the discrepancy for an update. This article's role is structured organisation plus historical context, not a replacement for the official authoritative page.

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# Update criteria for future revisions

This article was merged from several short cards in an older module. Future updates should admit only three kinds of material into the main text: first, primary sources — the University's official website, annual reports, faculty pages, regulatory or ranking bodies; second, verifiable facts from reputable media, student media, or public archives; third, public timelines that explain institutional changes. A lone screenshot, an undated rumour, an unlocatable ranking slogan, or a personal opinion may be kept only as a lead to be verified — never written up as fact.

Structurally, this article serves as the master card for the department listing: it gives readers the complete faculty-by-faculty directory first, then preserves the historical evolution, the ranking cross-index, and the institutional Q&A. Should any single topic grow beyond roughly 10,000–12,000 words, it will be split into two parts; but a supplementary year, a new institution, or a single controversy should continue to be folded into this article, to avoid fragmenting it into thin cards again.

# See also

• 学院总览 — Faculty overview
• 课程体系与通识 GUR — Programme structure and the GUR
• 设计学院深度档案 — School of Design, in depth
• 酒店及旅游业管理学院深度档案 — School of Hotel and Tourism Management, in depth
• 医疗及社会科学院：健康学科群 — Faculty of Health and Social Sciences: the health disciplines