PolyU Honorary Doctorates, University Fellowships and the Outstanding Alumni Award

Between a giant of game theory, the man who found the bacterium behind stomach ulcers, and a mainland university president with the rank of provincial party secretary, PolyU's honorary doctorate roll reads like a who's who across every walk of life. This article sorts out the three honours systems of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) — the Honorary Doctorate, the University Fellowship, and the alumni-focused Outstanding PolyU Alumni Award — and records the major national and international prizes won by its alumni and professors. For biographies and academic standing, see ./faculty-and-leaders.md (staff) and ./notable-alumni.md (alumni).

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# 1. Honorary Doctorates

PolyU confers honorary doctorates in nine fields: Business Administration, Design, Engineering, Humanities, Law, Letters, Science, Social Science and Technology (per the University's Honorary Degrees and University Fellowships register). According to public records, the roll of honorees reaches back to the late 1980s (from 1989) and continues to the present^※ (per PolyU's official page). Recipients span Nobel laureates, members of the Chinese academies of sciences and engineering, business leaders and public office-holders.

# Nobel laureates (selection)

The Nobel laureates above are drawn from the University's "Honorary Degrees and University Fellowships" official page^※ (per PolyU); where a particular year is in question, the official register prevails.

# Scientists and scholars (selection)

# Business and public service (selection)

Note: honorary doctorates are conferral honours, and most recipients are not PolyU graduates; Donald Tsang and Henry Tang received honorary doctorates in that capacity, which does not make them alumni with PolyU qualifications (see the correction of this misapprehension in ./notable-alumni.md).

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# 2. University Fellowships: a scheme from 2000

The University Fellowship is an honour PolyU bestows on people who have rendered outstanding service to the University. According to the University's honorary awards and appointments page^※, the scheme was introduced in 2000 and honours distinguished individuals for major contributions to both the University and society; recipients need not be PolyU graduates, though the roll overlaps frequently with alumni who are.

The distinction from an honorary doctorate is one of emphasis:

In the public record, designer Vivienne Tam has been awarded a PolyU University Fellowship^※ (per PolyU's University Fellowships pages); in business, Lam Tai-fai received a PolyU University Fellowship in 2000^※ (per Wikipedia). The full genealogy and case studies of PolyU's entertainment-industry University Fellows (Clifton Ko, Tim Yip, Josephine Siao, Chung King-fai, Kwong Mei-wan, Lang Lang) are in honorary-degrees-and-awards-2.md. The complete register is on PolyU's official "University Fellowships" page.

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# 3. The Outstanding PolyU Alumni Award

The Outstanding PolyU Alumni Award was founded in 1996 to recognise PolyU graduates for outstanding achievement in their fields, support for their alma mater, and contributions to society; from its founding to around 2022 it had honoured 113 recipients^※ (per the PolyU Alumni Affairs Office). The Outstanding PolyU Alumni Association was formed in 2012, made up of past winners. From 2022 the award has been restructured into three tiers — departmental, faculty/school and university — with a new "Young Alumni" category added (per the Alumni Affairs Office).

# Recent recipients (selection)

Note: PolyU also runs an "Outstanding PolyU Alumni Award (mainland graduates) / Outstanding Achievement Award" tier honouring graduates of its mainland China programmes (per the Alumni Affairs Office). The three honours — honorary doctorate, University Fellowship, Outstanding Alumni Award — correspond respectively to "distinguished figures from all walks of life", "those who have contributed to the University" and "high achievers PolyU itself has trained".

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# 4. Major national and international awards won by alumni and professors (selection)

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# 5. Named Chair Professorships

PolyU maintains a number of Named Chair Professorships (Endowed Professorships) endowed by donors — a key mechanism for attracting top scholars:

The creation of a named chair is usually tied to a donation, reflecting PolyU's deep partnership with Hong Kong's business and philanthropic families (for donors, see 08-finances/benefactors-and-donors.md).

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# 6. Principal academic awards and fellowship titles (systematic list)

# 6.1 Memberships of the Chinese academies

Several PolyU staff members have been elected to the two Chinese academies (the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering):

Whether other chair professors hold such memberships, this site records only where verifiable sources exist; no exhaustive list is attempted.

# 6.2 Fellowships of the Royal Society / Royal Academy of Engineering (UK)

• Prof. Jin-Guang Teng: Foreign Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (2025)^※

# 6.3 IEEE / ACM Fellowships

A number of professors in PolyU's Department of Computing, Department of Electronic and Information Engineering and related units hold IEEE Fellow or ACM Fellow titles, among the highest professional recognitions in engineering and computing.

• Prof. Cao Jiannong: IEEE Fellow^※
• Other IEEE Fellows: this site follows official sources; the list shifts with appointments and is not exhaustively reproduced here.

# 6.4 National Academy of Inventors (NAI) Fellows

According to PolyU press releases, some PolyU professors have been elected Fellows of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) — one of the highest recognitions of inventive patents and innovation.

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# 7. Hong Kong government honours

Each year, at the New Year and the anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to China, the Hong Kong government bestows honours including GBS, SBS and BBS — the Gold, Silver and Bronze Bauhinia Stars — together with honours such as MBE. Honourees among PolyU staff and leadership (selection):

The authoritative source for the complete list is the Hong Kong SAR Government Gazette; this site records only confirmed cases supported by multiple sources.

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# 8. International awards at a glance

Every award above is supported by an official PolyU press release (see 04-research/achievements.md and the individual releases); this article serves as a consolidated honours overview.

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# 9. The honorary degrees system: history and values

# 9.1 How the scheme developed

According to PolyU's official pages, the University has been conferring honorary doctorates since 1989^※, when it was still Hong Kong Polytechnic. After it gained university status in 1994 the system continued, and the range of honorees widened steadily — from an early emphasis on business donors and professionals to distinguished scholars, scientists, artists and public servants from around the world.

The conferral ceremony is usually held during the Congregation, at which honorary degrees are customarily awarded on campus each November. According to PolyU publications, the ceremony is presided over by the Chancellor (the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, ex officio) or a representative.

# 9.2 Criteria and selection process

Per PolyU's own materials, honorary degrees are nominated and reviewed by the Honorary Degrees and University Fellowships Committee and finally approved by the Council. The core criteria are:

• outstanding achievement in one's field, at a level of international recognition;
• significant contribution to society, to Hong Kong, or to one's profession;
• some connection or collaboration with PolyU at the academic, professional or community level;
• unimpeachable character and reputation.

The list of honorees is usually announced a few weeks before the ceremony, but the selection process itself remains confidential.

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# 10. The contributions and backgrounds of selected honorees

# 10.1 The scientists: why PolyU chose them

Among PolyU's Nobel laureates, a few selection logics stand out:

• Barry Marshall (2005 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine): discoverer of Helicobacter pylori and its role in peptic ulcers. PolyU did more than confer an honorary doctorate — it established the Marshall Research Centre^※ on campus, focused on gut microbiome and disease prevention, a sign of a substantive working relationship (per PolyU's official pages).

• John Nash (1994 Nobel Prize in Economics): pioneer of game theory. Awarded an honorary Doctor of Science in October 2011^※ (per PolyU), he left a deep impression on several Hong Kong students through academic exchanges at the University before his death in 2015. A Beautiful Mind made his story widely known.

• Bernard Feringa (2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry): originator of molecular machines. PolyU conferred its honorary doctorate in 2024, roughly eight years after his Nobel — a marker of the University's orientation towards nano- and molecular-materials research.

# 10.2 The business leaders: tycoons of Hong Kong

Industrialists honoured by PolyU are often its philanthropic donors — standard practice across the world's universities, and subject to independent scrutiny by the academic committee:

• Lui Che-woo (吕志和): founder of K. Wah International Group and philanthropist; several PolyU buildings bear his family's name.
• Cheng Yu-tung (郑裕彤) (1925–2016): founder of New World Development; a giant of Hong Kong's jewellery industry; listed as an honoree in PolyU's honorary degrees register.
• Victor Fung Kwok-king (冯国经): honorary chairman of the Fung Group and a former chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries; a long-time driver of research into Hong Kong's and the world's supply chains.

# 10.3 The scholars: academic exchange across the Strait and beyond

Conferring honorary doctorates on leading mainland university presidents and academicians is PolyU's institutional signal of integration into the national research system:

• Gong Qihuang (President of Peking University / optical physicist / CAS member) was honoured in 2023 — Peking University and PolyU collaborate substantively on several joint research projects;
• Xu Ningsheng (CAS member) was honoured in 2023 — during his presidency of the University of Hong Kong he pushed for collaboration between Hong Kong institutions and the mainland;
• Gang Pei (then President of Tongji University) was honoured in 2015 — Tongji and PolyU run a joint research institute in civil engineering and urban development.

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# 11. Hong Kong government honours and their link to PolyU

On New Year's Day and 1 July (the anniversary of Hong Kong's return to China) each year, the Hong Kong SAR Government confers insignia on figures from all walks of life, and a number of PolyU staff, administrators and alumni have been among the recipients. Beyond the Bronze Bauhinia Star honorees listed in section 7, several holders of honorary doctorates (such as Laura Cha) also hold Hong Kong honours of their own — the two sets of honours are independent and not conferred in tandem.

PolyU President Jin-Guang Teng, besides his Bronze Bauhinia Star, was also elected a Foreign Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) of the UK in 2025^※, underlining the standing of PolyU's academic leadership in the international engineering world.

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# 12. Frequently asked questions

Q1: Does an honorary doctorate from PolyU count as an academic qualification?

No. An honorary doctorate is an honorary degree, not an academic qualification; recipients complete no courses and sit no examinations. The Hong Kong Qualifications Framework (HKQF) does not register honorary degrees, and a recipient's formal qualifications remain whatever they have earned through accredited study.

Q2: What is the difference between an honorary doctorate and a University Fellowship?

Both are honorary titles, but of different kinds: an honorary doctorate recognises outstanding achievement in a professional field or in society at large; a University Fellowship specifically honours distinguished service or contributions to PolyU itself — major donors, long-serving Council members or alumni representatives, for example. The two honours can be held by the same person (as with Lam Tai-fai).

Q3: Did Nobel laureate John Nash have an academic relationship with PolyU?

According to PolyU's public materials, Nash visited PolyU in October 2011 and received an honorary Doctor of Science^※, and shared his insights on game theory with students. Nash died in a car accident in 2015. PolyU counts him among the honorary graduates of particular significance to the University. Nash-style game theory appears in PolyU's undergraduate and postgraduate economics and business curricula, but there is no named research centre dedicated to him.

Q4: Does the Outstanding PolyU Alumni Award carry a cash prize?

Per the PolyU Alumni Affairs Office's official page, the award is primarily honorary: recipients receive a certificate and trophy and are invited to an official PolyU presentation ceremony. There is no fixed cash prize, though some recipients parlay the recognition into roles in PolyU recruitment activities or speaking engagements.

Q5: Why does PolyU confer honorary doctorates on presidents and academicians of top mainland institutions?

This is a common practice for Hong Kong universities "bridging mainland China and the world": honouring leading mainland scholars symbolises academic recognition and mutual research partnerships, and helps build joint institutes and student exchange. On the observed record, PolyU's 2023 batch of honours to scholars from Peking University, Southern Medical University and other institutions was part of a drive, under the framework of national science-and-technology collaboration in the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, to strengthen ties between Hong Kong institutions and mainland research bodies.

Q6: How many honorary doctorates has PolyU conferred in total, and where can I find the full list?

The complete list is on PolyU's official page: https://www.polyu.edu.hk/en/about-polyu/honorary-degrees-and-fellowships/^※. As of the time of writing, PolyU has conferred honorary doctorates continuously since 1989, with more than a hundred recipients in total. The University Fellowships register is on the same page.

Q7: When was the University Fellowship scheme established, and who are its typical recipients?

According to PolyU's honorary awards and appointments page, University Fellowships have been conferred since 2000 to distinguished individuals for major contributions to the University and society; recipients need not be PolyU graduates. The designer Vivienne Tam (herself an alumna) and the businessman Lam Tai-fai are both on the roll; in the entertainment world, director Clifton Ko, honoured in 2012, is a rarer case of someone linked to the University through institutional collaboration rather than academic study — see honorary-degrees-and-awards-2.md.

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# 13. Methodological note

This file is an AI-assisted compilation of consolidated information. The definitive authority for the full list of honorary degree recipients is the University's official "Honorary Degrees and University Fellowships" page; every honoree and year cited here carries a source. Where an individual's exact conferral session is in doubt, the official register prevails. Outstanding PolyU Alumni Award recipients are drawn from the Alumni Affairs Office's official pages and PolyU press releases.