Faculty of Science and Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences: PolyU's "Science + Computing" Twin Pillars

Module: 01 Academics · Sub-file: Faculty of Science and Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences In recent years, PolyU has reshaped its academic structure for the AI era—bringing together computing, data science and artificial intelligence, and applied mathematics under a new Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences (FCMS), standing alongside the Faculty of Science (FS). This article examines the composition and significance of this "science + computing" twin-pillar arrangement. For an overview of all faculties, see faculties-and-schools.md; for the Faculty of Engineering, see faculty-of-engineering.md. Information is drawn primarily from PolyU's official faculty and programme pages; the faculty structure is subject to change amid reorganisation, and the latest official announcement prevails.

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# 1. Why "computing" earned its own faculty: the restructuring rationale

In the past, computing and data science at PolyU were largely attached to the engineering or science faculties. But as artificial intelligence and data science have become core drivers across industries, many universities have chosen to make these disciplines independent and well-resourced.

According to the PolyU faculties, schools and departments page^※ and the official FCMS page^※, PolyU has in recent years formed the Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences (FCMS), bringing the following departments under one roof:

The logic of housing "mathematics + computing + data/AI" in a single faculty is clear: these three form the shared foundation of the AI and data age—mathematics is the underpinning, computing the tool, and data/AI the application.

Strength of source: The consolidation of applied mathematics, computing, and data science and AI into FCMS is documented on the PolyU faculties/schools/departments page and the official FCMS page.

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# 2. FCMS in detail: the tenth academic unit, launched on 1 January 2025

In one sentence: FCMS was officially established on 1 January 2025—PolyU's tenth academic unit—with Prof. Changwen Chen^※ (Chair Professor of Visual Computing) serving as interim dean. At its launch, its three constituent departments together had more than 125 academic staff and 390 researchers.

According to a Pulse@PolyU special report from April 2025^※, FCMS was set up in response to the urgent global demand for AI talent and technical expertise—concentrating the computing, data science, and applied mathematics strength previously dispersed across the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Science into one faculty, so that PolyU could compete in AI education and research at the scale of a "whole faculty" rather than individual departments. The division of labour among FCMS's three departments is:

FCMS's taught postgraduate programmes cover AI, big-data computing, and even emerging niches such as blockchain technology and metaverse technology—the very naming of such programmes itself signals PolyU's desire to keep computing education close to the latest industry terminology and demand, rather than resting on a conventional computer-science syllabus.

On academic-reputation indicators, FCMS started with a substantial head start:

According to the PolyU media release on the QS 2026 subject rankings (March 2026)^※, PolyU placed 24 subjects within the global top 100 in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026. The subjects explicitly named include "Data Science and Artificial Intelligence" and "Materials Sciences"—which fall, respectively, under FCMS and the Faculty of Science's physics and materials wing, offering concrete evidence of how this "science + computing" twin-pillar strategy shows up in the University's honours. The media release does not disclose the exact rank of each subject, only that five subjects made the global top 30 (hospitality and leisure management, civil and structural engineering, nursing, architecture and built environment, and art and design)—none of them in the sciences or computing. This suggests FCMS and the Faculty of Science are currently in the "top 100, but not top 30" band, with ground still to make up against PolyU's traditional strengths (hotel and tourism, nursing, architecture).

Strength of source: FCMS's founding date, dean, departmental composition, and staff/researcher numbers come from the Pulse@PolyU special report and the official FCMS page; QS subject rankings, highly cited scholar counts, and ARWU subject rankings come from the research highlights section of the FCMS website. Specific positions are subject to the latest official release.

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# 3. The Faculty of Science (FS): a four-department structure and the 2026 reorganisation

In one sentence: The Faculty of Science now comprises four departments—Chemistry, Physics and Materials Science, Food Science and Nutrition, and Life Sciences—of which Chemistry and Life Sciences were split in July 2026 from the former Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology (ABCT). The Dean is Prof. Raymond Wai-yeung Wong^※.

The Faculty of Science grew out of the former Faculty of Applied Science and Textiles, which was renamed the "Faculty of Science" on 4 July 2022, adopting the motto "PolyU Science Creates Impact" (PolyU media release, July 2022^※). At the time of renaming, the Faculty had three departments: Applied Biology and Chemical Technology (ABCT), Applied Mathematics (AMA), and Applied Physics (AP). Two rounds of internal restructuring followed:

In other words, today's Faculty of Science is structured as follows:

Most Faculty of Science undergraduate programmes admit students through broad-based schemes, such as the JS3008 Science broad-based scheme^※ covering the science disciplines, and the JS3011^※ scheme offering a double major in biotechnology/chemical technology. Students take a common first-year curriculum, then at the end of the second semester of Year 1 are streamed into a specific major based on academic results, preferences, and interview performance. This "common foundation, then specialisation" design mirrors the broad-based admissions model used across other PolyU faculties such as Engineering and Construction and Environment (compare faculty-of-engineering.md).

Worth noting: PolyU's State Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery operates on the academic foundation of the former ABCT system. After the reorganisation, its key researchers are now housed across the Chemistry and Life Sciences departments (see 04 Research · State Key Laboratories). This is where the pure sciences meet national-level research: the departmental split does not change the laboratory's research landscape—only its administrative lines of reporting.

Strength of source: The Faculty of Science's current four-department structure and the ABCT split date (1 July 2026) are cross-confirmed by the Faculty of Science undergraduate admissions page and the JS3011 programme page; the 2022 renaming and the 2023 establishment of FSN come from PolyU media releases. Specific personnel and departmental names are subject to the latest official pages.

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# 4. The Department of Physics and Materials: physics + AI double majors

The applied character of PolyU's science programmes is evident from their curriculum design. According to Faculty of Science materials, PolyU offers combinations such as the "BSc (Hons) in Physics + a secondary major in Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics" or "+ a secondary major in Innovation and Entrepreneurship"—pairing traditional physics with AI/data and entrepreneurship. The department's website now uses the name "Department of Physics and Materials (Physics and Materials)"; for many years previously it was called "Applied Physics", and both names may still appear across PolyU's programme pages and archival materials—readers checking programme details should be alert to this.

This "major + AI/entrepreneurship secondary major" design echoes PolyU's university-wide GUR-AIDA and GUR-IE requirements (see programs.md): whatever your major, you are encouraged to develop both AI literacy and an entrepreneurial mindset.

Strength of source: The physics + AI/entrepreneurship secondary major combinations are documented in Faculty of Science programme materials.

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# 5. Computing and AI: PolyU's new strategic direction

The creation of FCMS elevates computing, data science, AI, and applied mathematics to one of PolyU's strategic priorities. This aligns with a wider array of developments across the University:

• The university-wide general education programme has introduced the AI and Data Analytics Requirements (GUR-AIDA);
• The PolyU Academy for Artificial Intelligence Research (PAAI) was established in 2024, with Prof. Yang Hongxia as Executive Director, positioned as a university-level platform that advances AI research across disciplines and connects application areas such as "medicine–engineering integration" (see 00 Overview · Recent Developments 2020–2026); the FCMS website states it collaborates with PAAI to bring together researchers from different disciplines in developing AI models with deep domain expertise;
• Under InnoHK, the AiDLab (Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence in Design) combines AI with design (see 04 Research · InnoHK);
• PAIR, the Interdisciplinary Research Institute, focuses on areas such as the Artificial Intelligence Internet of Things (AIoT) (see 04 Research · PAIR);
• The Faculty of Humanities also offers interdisciplinary courses bridging AI and the humanities (see faculty-humanities-language.md).

Clearly, AI at PolyU is not the preserve of any single faculty—it is a university-wide strategy. FCMS is the strategy's "disciplinary spearhead," while PAAI plays the role of "cross-faculty coordinator": FCMS supplies the disciplinary depth in computer science, data science, and AI algorithms, while PAAI channels those capabilities into application scenarios in medicine, engineering, and other faculties. One vertical, one horizontal—together they form the backbone of PolyU's AI strategy in the 2020s.

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# 6. Placing the new faculties in PolyU's disciplinary map

With the Faculty of Science and FCMS, PolyU's disciplinary landscape is more complete:

The "science + computing" twin pillars support PolyU's basic and applied research (e.g. State Key Laboratories, PAIR) while supplying the mathematical and AI underpinnings for its applied disciplines in engineering, design, and health.

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# 7. FCMS and the Faculty of Science: avoiding "you-in-me, me-in-you" after the split

Once FCMS was carved out of the Faculty of Science/Faculty of Engineering system, a natural question arises: mathematics, physics, and computing inherently overlap (think computational physics, numerical analysis)—how do the two faculties draw the line after separation? Based on the publicly disclosed structural arrangements, PolyU follows a "one department, one faculty" principle—each department belongs to exactly one faculty, and cross-disciplinary research is pursued through cross-faculty collaborations, joint programmes, or secondary majors, rather than by maintaining "half a department" in each faculty. For example, the "Physics + Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics secondary major" is the product of a Faculty of Science student taking FCMS courses across faculties—not the Faculty of Science setting up its own AI department. This "departments stay whole, programmes may cross" arrangement is the organising logic shared by PolyU's repeated faculty restructurings of recent years (fashion and textiles going independent in 2022, computing and mathematics in 2025, chemistry and life sciences splitting in 2026): first fix a single administrative home, then use flexibility at the curriculum and programme level to accommodate the reality of disciplinary overlap.

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# 8. Representative research: from highly cited scholars to applied AI projects

In one sentence: Among the representative research outputs FCMS has publicly highlighted, two strands stand out—a stock of highly cited scholars recognised by the academic community, and directly user-facing applied AI projects such as VideoMind, an intelligent agent for multimodal video understanding, and AI-Care, an assistive technology for people with visual impairments.

According to the research highlights section of the FCMS website, these two projects are representative of the faculty's work:

• VideoMind: a multimodal AI agent capable of understanding, retrieving, and reasoning over long-form video content—work corresponding to the DSAI department's focus on multimodal large models;
• AI-Care: an assistive-technology project for the visually impaired, reflecting the orientation of PolyU's computing disciplines towards "technology in service of society," consistent with the University's broader emphasis on knowledge transfer and social impact (compare the similarly application-oriented projects highlighted in 04 Research · InnoHK).

Both projects have been listed by FCMS among "PolyU's top ten research and innovation stories of the year"—a side signal that the computing disciplines' outputs have entered the University-level research publicity priority list, sharing the spotlight with projects from traditionally strong faculties like engineering and design.

Strength of source: The VideoMind and AI-Care project names and their inclusion in the annual research stories come from the research highlights section of the official FCMS page; specific technical details and paper sources would require consulting PolyU Scholars Hub or the original project papers, which this article does not elaborate.

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