Module: 01 Academics · Sub-file: Flagship Disciplines In-Depth Dossier (Rehabilitation Sciences + Applied Social Sciences) This page is the deep-dive companion to health-sciences.md, the "Faculty of Health and Social Sciences overview", focusing on two departments in full: the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences (physiotherapy / occupational therapy / prosthetics & orthotics) and the Department of Applied Social Sciences (social work education). PolyU has no medical school and no teaching hospital (see 11 Medicine & Hospitals), yet in these two "non-doctor" health and social professions it has long been one of Hong Kong's core training institutions. Sources are primarily PolyU's official Department of Rehabilitation Sciences and Department of Applied Social Sciences pages, the SWRB accredited programme list, and academic papers; all data are dated and attributed.

---

# Part One: Department of Rehabilitation Sciences

# 1. Overview at a Glance

---

# 2. Rehabilitation Sciences: From 1978 Onwards

According to the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences' official page^※, the department has provided professional training for occupational therapists and physiotherapists since 1978. The timing is significant: in 1978, PolyU was still the Hong Kong Polytechnic (a full 16 years before its 1994 university upgrade), yet it was already shouldering the training of Hong Kong's rehabilitation professionals.

In 1970s Hong Kong, physiotherapy and occupational therapy were still emerging professions: physiotherapy targets functional recovery of the musculoskeletal, neurological and cardiorespiratory systems; occupational therapy uses purposeful activity to help people whose function is limited by illness, injury or disability rebuild their daily lives and working capacity. The Polytechnic's take-up of both programmes fit naturally with its long-standing, applied, professional, employment-oriented identity — a different path from "research-intensive comprehensive universities first found medicine schools, then spawned rehabilitation disciplines". PolyU entered the health field directly through professional training.

According to departmental sources, the Tam Wing Fan Rehabilitation Service Centre (Occupational Therapy) is the first-ever university-based OT clinic in Hong Kong. This kind of "teaching plus service" university clinic lets students train in real clinical settings while providing rehabilitation services to the community — the PolyU model of professional education through doing.

Source strength: Both the 1978 start date and the "first university-based OT clinic" claim appear on the department's official page — reliable, first-party sources.

---

# 3. Undergraduate Programmes and Admission Routes

Undergraduate programmes in the health disciplines are largely admitted through BSc Honours Schemes. For example, per PolyU's programme pages: JS3636 — Rehabilitation Sciences Scheme (Physiotherapy)^※ admits via the HKDSE (JUPAS); JS3624 — Rehabilitation Sciences Scheme (Occupational Therapy)^※ is the admission route for the occupational therapy programme.

Health professional programmes — physiotherapy, occupational therapy, nursing and optometry especially — have long been among PolyU's high-cutoff, steady-demand "popular" disciplines, a direct result of structural demand: an ageing Hong Kong population and a chronic shortage of medical and rehabilitation manpower (background analysis; the exact admission cutoffs are as officially published for each year).

---

# 4. The Teaching Clinic System: University-Operated Clinical Training Grounds

PolyU operates a network of teaching clinics on and off campus — clinical training grounds for students and public services in one. Per the PolyU Campus Facilities Office clinic page^※, the clinics typically include a physiotherapy clinic, occupational therapy/rehabilitation service centres (such as the Tam Wing Fan Centre mentioned above), an optometry clinic (refraction and eye health checks) and podiatry, among other health services.

This on-campus teaching clinic system is a signature of PolyU's health disciplines education: students accumulate experience in supervised, real clinical environments while the community gains affordable professional services — a "teaching–learning–service" trinity.

Source strength: Clinic types and their "university-operated" status are from the Campus Facilities Office official page; the latest clinic list and services are as per the most recent official version.

---

# 5. Rehabilitation Science Research: An Ageing Society and Rehabilitation Technology

Hong Kong's society is ageing rapidly, and FHSS's research priorities align closely with that reality. In elderly care, managing chronic conditions in older people — diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cognitive impairment — is a core research theme of the School of Nursing; in dementia, the Department of Applied Social Sciences and the School of Nursing collaborate on non-pharmacological interventions (reminiscence therapy, cognitive training) and carer support. In rehabilitation technology, per the PolyU Department of Rehabilitation Sciences website^※, research teams design "upper-limb rehabilitation robots" and "gait-training robots", collaborating across departments with the Faculty of Engineering to build precision engineering into clinical rehabilitation devices; wearable sensors monitor gait, electromyography and limb coordination in real time, giving therapists objective quantitative data; and in intelligent prosthetics and orthotics, the frontier includes microprocessor-controlled knee joints (of the C-Leg type) and brain-computer interface (BCI) assisted upper-limb prostheses.

---

# 6. The Link to the "Third Medical School" Contest

PolyU's deep foundation in the health disciplines is precisely one of its key credentials in the 2024–2025 bid for Hong Kong's third medical school: a university that already produces large numbers of health professionals — rehabilitation, nursing, optometry — and operates multiple teaching clinics can credibly claim it has the health-discipline base to run a medical school. For the full story of the contest, see 11 Medicine & Hospitals · The Third Medical School Bid. This page need only make the point: rehabilitation and the health disciplines are the core support for PolyU's "no medical school, yet deep in healthcare" narrative.

---

# Part Two: Department of Applied Social Sciences (APSS)

# 7. Where APSS Came From: Fifty Years of Evolution, in Sequence

The Department of Applied Social Sciences at PolyU did not begin on a university campus but inside a government body. Per the APSS official history page^※, the department's predecessor was the Institute of Social Work Training, founded by the Hong Kong government in 1973. In 1977 it came under the Hong Kong Polytechnic's management and was renamed the School of Social Work, launching three programmes: a two-year full-time Diploma in Social Work, a one-year full-time Certificate in Child Care, and a one-year part-time Certificate Course for Teachers of Mentally Handicapped Children. In 1983, a 2+2 bachelor's articulation model was introduced, letting diploma graduates accumulate credits towards a degree. In 1986 it became the Department of Applied Social Studies, and in 2000 took its present name, the Department of Applied Social Sciences (APSS). In 2023 the department celebrated its 50th anniversary, signing a memorandum of understanding with the University of Warsaw the same year.

---

# 8. What APSS Offers: The Full Ladder from Bachelor's to Doctor of Social Work

# Undergraduate: Four Directions

Per the APSS programme pages^※, the department currently offers four honours bachelor's programmes:

Per the list of recognised qualifications of the Social Workers Registration Board (SWRB), Hong Kong^※, PolyU's BA (Hons) in Social Work (four-year full-time, first intake 2012/13) is recognised by the SWRB until re-review in 2029/30, and its graduates may apply to register as Registered Social Workers (RSWs) in Hong Kong — the statutory threshold for practising.

# Taught Master's: Seven Advancement Tracks

APSS's taught postgraduate programmes now span seven directions: social work practice, family therapy, counselling, mental health, school and community psychology, applied psychology, and others. Of these, the Master of Social Work (MSW), a three-year part-time programme, has been recognised by the SWRB to 2031/32 since its first intake in 2005/06^※. Per the MSW programme page^※, the programme requires 37 credits (including 8 fieldwork credits), with total tuition of HK$382,000; taught credits are HK$8,300 each and fieldwork credits HK$18,700 each.

# The Doctor of Social Work (DSW): A Hong Kong First

Per the DSW programme page^※, the Doctor of Social Work (DSW) was established in 2008 — the first DSW programme in Hong Kong. It runs three years full-time or four years part-time (including summer terms), requiring 49 credits spanning coursework, AI-education-technology subjects and the DSW thesis. The programme is positioned as high-level training for a "practitioner–researcher–educator" trinity, delivered through a blended model of online, classroom and skills-lab learning, with a focus on "critical local–global dialogue".

---

# 9. PolyU and Peking University: A 35-Year Partnership That Reshaped Mainland Social Work Education

The social work education partnership between PolyU's APSS and Peking University is one of the longest-running and most influential cross-border professional education collaborations of any Hong Kong institution. Per a Tandfonline academic paper (2020)^※, the collaboration began in 1988, when Peking University and the Asia-Pacific Association for Social Work Education (APASWE) co-organised a symposium with its secretariat housed in APSS — a time when "social work" was a near-unknown term in mainland China.

After the 1989 Tiananmen incident, every other potential partner withdrew — PolyU was the only institution that stayed. That decision built the foundation of the deep mutual trust that followed. Over more than a decade of groundwork, in 2000 the two universities jointly launched mainland China's first Master of Social Work (MSW) programme, funded by the Keswick Foundation. In 2010 they went further, establishing the China Social Work Research Centre to institutionalise their joint research platform. During the critical period when mainland social work education was being built from nothing, PolyU APSS played the "seeder", its influence reaching into the curriculum design and faculty training of dozens of mainland university social work departments.

---

# 10. How Strong Is APSS Research? Rankings and Output Data

# 52nd Globally in THE

Per APSS official news (21 January 2026)^※, in the THE World University Rankings by Subject 2026 "Social Sciences" category, PolyU ranks 52nd globally, up 16 places from 68th in 2025, and first among Hong Kong institutions for research quality. The official framing: "reflecting our continued growth and strong international standing in teaching and research across diverse social science disciplines". On the same basis, the US News Global Rankings 2026–27 place PolyU 19th globally in Social Sciences and Public Health.

# Research Output and Funding

Per the PolyU Scholars Hub^※, APSS's cumulative research output stands at 3,879 items: 2,086 journal articles, 719 book chapters, 508 conference papers and 174 monographs; cumulative citations 89,861, h-index 99; the department counts 71 researchers. Per the APSS January 2025 newsletter^※, in 2024/25 11 colleagues received Research Grants Council (RGC) funding totalling HK$9,069,165. Per the March 2026 newsletter^※, Prof. Hok Bun KU received HK$9,856,300 from the Keswick Foundation for China social work research, and Prof. Angel LAI received over HK$3.6 million from Save the Children Hong Kong for a child wellbeing research project.

# Five Research Centres

Per the APSS research centres page^※, the department currently houses five research centres:

---

# 11. Where Do Graduates Go? Social Work Practice and the Employment Landscape

Social workers holding qualifications from SWRB-recognised programmes, once registered, may practise in the following settings. Per the SWRB^※, registration is not automatic — graduates must actively apply to the SWRB to obtain Registered Social Worker (RSW) status.

Those holding an MSW or DSW may move into social work supervision, agency management or social work education. Per the APSS January 2025 newsletter^※, a single graduation ceremony in 2024 alone saw more than 475 undergraduate and taught postgraduate students graduate.

---

# 12. How Wide Is APSS's International Network?

Per the APSS January 2025 newsletter^※, recent MOUs have been signed with Goldsmiths, University of London; Durham University; Shandong University; and Al-Farabi Kazakh National University; long-standing partners include Peking University and the University of Chicago. Per the PolyU Scholars Hub^※, APSS's "global collaboration network" connects to UC Berkeley, the University of Chicago and other research institutions. In December 2024, APSS jointly hosted Winter Institute 2024 with Peking University and the University of Chicago, receiving 24 postgraduate students and four faculty members in Hong Kong and Hanoi, Vietnam, for cross-cultural policy research exchange.

---

# 13. The Two Departments Side by Side: A Continuum of Health and Social Care

Reading the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences and the Department of Applied Social Sciences against each other in a single dossier reveals a hidden logic in PolyU's Faculty of Health and Social Sciences. The two departments began in the same era — rehabilitation sciences in 1978, APSS's predecessor in 1973 — and both were created in response to specific social or public-service gaps in their historical moment in Hong Kong: rehabilitation sciences filled the shortage of "non-doctor" health professionals; APSS filled the government's need for a professionalised social work sector. Their subsequent trajectories rhyme too: both rose from "industry training institutions" to degree programmes, then to postgraduate education and ultimately to the highest qualification (internationally recognised prosthetics-and-orthotics pathways / the Doctor of Social Work). This is the classic PolyU institutional pattern — meet a practical manpower need first, then upgrade academically step by step — rather than a comprehensive research university designing its disciplines top-down from day one.

---