PolyU Research Funding: The Three Pipelines of RGC, RMGS and Donations

Research costs money—laboratories, equipment, doctoral students and researchers all need funding, and that money never arrives as one lump sum. Instead, it flows in through three channels of very different characters. This article maps the financial sources of PolyU research: competitive grants from the Research Grants Council (RGC), the Research Matching Grant Scheme (RMGS), and donations and naming rights; it also unpacks the three-part structure of the UGC recurrent grant itself, and where PolyU sits in the financial landscape of Hong Kong's eight UGC-funded universities. For overall income and net assets, see finances.md; for the two sets of accounts—"UGC-funded vs self-financed"—broken down by funding source, see polyu-ugc-funding-and-income-structure.md; for the full donor list, see benefactors-and-donors.md.

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# 1. The UGC Recurrent Grant is itself divided into three parts

Before turning to the three research-specific pipelines, one often-overlooked fact is worth clarifying: PolyU's largest income source—the UGC Recurrent Grant—is not a monolithic block. It is internally split into three components. According to UGC's official FAQ^※:

The teaching allocation is determined jointly by "the number of approved student places, the level of study (sub-degree/undergraduate/taught postgraduate/research postgraduate), the mode of study (full-time/part-time) and the subject category"—science, engineering and medical programmes receive heavier weights than the humanities because of their equipment and staffing intensity. Grants are generally allocated as an overall block on a three-year (triennium) cycle, and universities deploy them autonomously under the block grant framework—but the research component has increasingly shifted toward competitive allocation tied to each university's research performance. In other words, even within "government money", roughly a fifth is now contingent on how a university's research fares in assessment; it is no longer a guaranteed baseline.

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# 2. The RGC: competitive research funding

PolyU's academic research relies mainly on funding allocated by the Research Grants Council (RGC) through competitive, international peer review (for the institutional background, see 12 Misc · The UGC funding system).

• One source of RGC funding is the investment return of the Research Endowment Fund (principal of about HK$16 billion, according to UGC data);
• The main form of funding is the Earmarked Research Grants, allocated on a competitive basis;
• According to a UGC press release from 2025^※, the 2025/26 round of the General Research Fund (GRF) awarded 1,164 projects totalling about HK$1.043 billion (across all eight universities);
• According to a UGC press release for 2026/27^※, the next round of GRF/ECS together awarded 1,483 projects totalling about HK$1.18 billion (GRF: 1,277 projects at about HK$1.04 billion; ECS: 206 projects at about HK$140 million). The GRF success rate held at roughly 30%, ECS at about 33%, and applications grew by some 9% over the previous round—competition has not eased even as the total funding pot has grown.

PolyU researchers must win funding within this competitive framework—how much they secure both reflects their strength and directly shapes research output. This pipeline echoes the ~20% "Research" component of the UGC grant discussed above: the more a university wins in RGC competition, the better it tends to perform in the UGC's research assessment, and the two feed each other in a virtuous circle.

# 2.1 RGC funding is not just the GRF

The General Research Fund (GRF) is the RGC's best-known and broadest funding scheme, but it is far from the only route. According to UGC data, PolyU researchers can in fact apply to a range of RGC schemes, including:

• The Collaborative Research Fund (CRF)—supports cross-institutional, cross-disciplinary team research projects, with individual grants typically far larger than the GRF;
• The Theme-based Research Scheme (TRS)—large-scale special projects focused on strategic needs of Hong Kong or the nation, carrying the largest grants and the stiffest competition;
• The Early Career Scheme (ECS)—start-up funding reserved for early-career scholars, with a relatively lower bar; a key step for young academics in building an independent research record.

The schemes differ widely in grant size, review cycle and competitive intensity—the GRF is the "cast a wide net" workhorse, while the TRS is the "concentrate firepower" strategic instrument. PolyU researchers must choose the channel that fits the nature of their project and their own career stage.

# 2.2 CRF and RIF in 2024/25: PolyU ranks first among the eight

PolyU's performance in the Collaborative Research Fund (CRF) and the Research Impact Fund (RIF) is a concrete illustration that "competitive funding is not only about total amounts, but also about relative rankings." According to a press release from PolyU's Research and Innovation Office^※, in the 2024/25 round PolyU secured 18 projects totalling about HK$91.76 million—ranking first among the eight UGC-funded universities in both number of projects and total CRF funding:

The funded projects span liver-cancer therapy (Professor Li Jianhua), protein-based data storage (Professor Yao Zhongping), novel optical technologies (Professor Zhang Xueming), sustainable aviation fuel (Dr Liu Shaoyuan) and 3D-printed concrete construction (Professor Poon Chi-sun)—cutting across medicine, materials, energy and civil engineering, and reflecting the interdisciplinary breadth of PolyU's research portfolio. These figures echo the virtuous circle described at the start of section 2: a leading position in CRF/RIF is itself a measure of PolyU's bargaining power in the UGC's research assessment.

# 2.3 Cross-border links: NSFC/RGC joint research funding

PolyU's competition for research funding also extends into joint mechanisms with mainland China and the Greater Bay Area. According to a press release from PolyU's Research and Innovation Office^※, PolyU secured 13 projects under two schemes jointly administered by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and the RGC, ranking in the top three for both schemes:

• The Collaborative Research Scheme (CRS)—supports proposals jointly submitted by mainland and Hong Kong researchers, on a four-year project cycle; PolyU was awarded 2 projects;
• The Joint Research Scheme (JRS)—aims to leverage the complementary strengths of the two places to drive cross-border collaboration; PolyU was awarded 11 projects, with funding of about HK$13.2 million.

This pipeline is smaller in scale than the GRF or CRF, but its significance lies in extending PolyU's research funding from "competition among Hong Kong's eight universities" to the larger arena of "Guangdong–Hong Kong collaboration"—echoing the industry-academia-research bases PolyU has established on the mainland, such as those in Foshan and Suzhou.

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# 3. The Research Matching Grant Scheme (RMGS): leveraging private donations

Beyond competitive grants, the government also uses the Research Matching Grant Scheme (RMGS) to encourage private donations to R&D. According to UGC data, the RMGS was launched in August 2019 with the aims of incentivising the private sector to strengthen financial support for R&D and diversifying research funding sources. It covers the eight UGC-funded universities as well as a number of self-financing institutions.

Mechanically, when a university secures a private donation for research, the government provides a matching grant at a set ratio—thereby amplifying society's financial input into R&D. This also goes some way toward explaining the growth in PolyU's donation income in recent years (see finances.md). In effect, a private donation to PolyU research often mobilises more money than the donation itself.

# 3.1 The new round (2025–29): total commitment and coverage

The RMGS is not a one-off scheme but a rolling, multi-year mechanism. According to UGC's official RMGS page^※, the current round has entered a new 2025–29 cycle:

• The operating period runs from 1 May 2025 to 30 April 2029, a four-year term;
• The government has reserved a total commitment of about HK$1.5 billion in matching grants for this round;
• Coverage extends to the eight UGC-funded universities (including their self-financing branches/units) and thirteen local self-financing degree-awarding institutions, with PolyU applying alongside the other seven;
• The specific matching ratio (whether tiered or with floating bands), annual caps per institution, and other details are set out in the latest edition of the UGC's RMGS Operation Guide—the matching formula and caps differ between rounds, so institutional finance staff must check the documents for the current round rather than rely on figures from previous cycles.

The very existence of a new round signals something: the RMGS is no stopgap. Under the policy thrust of "new industrialisation" and "industry-academia-research integration" that the Hong Kong government has pursued in recent years, it has become a standing instrument, continuously renewed, with commitments climbing round by round. For an institution like PolyU, strong in engineering and applied research, it is the second most important external funding channel after the RGC.

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# 4. Donations and naming: philanthropic resources entering research

PolyU's third research funding pipeline is social donations. According to finances.md, PolyU's donation and gift income has risen over five years from about HK$168 million to about HK$349 million (university accounting basis). These donations are often expressed through naming—named buildings, research institutes, endowed chairs and the like (for the naming landscape, see benefactors-and-donors.md).

What donations mean for research:

• Named chairs (such as the Sir Sze-yuen Chung Professor of Precision Engineering, currently held by Professor Yung Kai-leung, see 06-people/faculty-and-leaders-2.md) support leading scholars;
• Named research institutes/centres (such as SCRI, RISE and RICRI from the Otto Poon Charitable Foundation) support research in specific fields, detailed in benefactors-and-donors-2.md;
• Under the RMGS, donations also unlock matching government funds—the three pipelines do not operate in isolation but reinforce one another.

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# 5. How funding becomes research output

These three funding pipelines ultimately converge into the "fuel" of PolyU research, sustaining:

• State Key Laboratories (in ultra-precision machining and chemical biology, see 04 Research · State Key Laboratories);
• Aerospace precision engineering (sampling systems, Mars cameras, see 04 Research · Aerospace overview);
• The PAIR interdisciplinary research academy (see 04 Research · PAIR);
• Stipends and training for doctoral students and researchers (see 04 Research · Graduate School);
• InnoHK centres and more (see 04 Research · InnoHK).

Without such funding, even the finest research ideas cannot take off. Understanding where the money comes from is a precondition for understanding how PolyU research actually runs.

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# 6. Where PolyU sits in the financial landscape of Hong Kong's eight universities

All eight universities operate within the same UGC framework, and the government's recurrent-grant mechanism is identical across them—but their scale differs markedly. The University of Hong Kong (HKU), with its teaching hospital, larger endowment and more non-local students, leads clearly in financial size; CUHK follows; PolyU, HKUST and CityU form the second tier. According to media compilations, HKU recorded a surplus of about HK$3.92 billion^※ in 2023/24 (as collated by China News Service), while PolyU's university-account surplus for the same year was about HK$537 million—a gap of an order of magnitude that reflects the two institutions' very different paths in endowment scale and income diversification. For PolyU's finances, the rapid growth of tuition income (especially the higher fees for non-local students) is currently the most promising channel of "organic growth".

Cross-institutional comparisons of surplus or scale must allow for differing accounting bases; with its medical school, research hospital and far larger private donations, HKU's financial size sits clearly apart from the other seven. PolyU's scale is closest to HKUST and CityU.

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# 7. Q&A

Q1: How do PolyU's research funds relate to its overall financial income?

The "government grants" line in PolyU's overall financial income (see finances.md) itself contains a research component of about 20%, linked in a virtuous circle to PolyU's performance in RGC competitive funding; the "donations and gifts" line, meanwhile, is the bookkeeping face of the third research funding pipeline (social donations). In other words, the three research funding pipelines discussed in this article are not separate from the overall income structure in finances.md—they are embedded within it as line-item details.

Q2: How exactly does the RMGS matching grant work? If someone donates HK$1 million, how much more can PolyU get?

According to UGC data, the RMGS "matches" private research donations received by universities at a set ratio; the exact ratio varies by year and by scheme, and a matching cap applies. The core logic: the higher the private donation, the more government matching funds a university can normally mobilise—but it is not an unlimited one-to-one match. For the specific matching ratio and application details, the latest announcements on the UGC's official RMGS page take precedence.

Q3: Where does the gap in financial scale between PolyU and HKU mainly come from?

Based on the data in this article, the main cause is not the UGC recurrent grant (the mechanism is identical across universities) but HKU's teaching hospital and research hospital, its far larger historically accumulated endowment fund, and its higher share of non-local students—each of which directly pushes up income. PolyU sits with HKUST and CityU in the "second tier", at a comparable scale.

Q4: How well does PolyU actually perform in RGC competition—is it just making up the numbers?

No. According to PolyU's Research and Innovation Office, PolyU secured 18 projects totalling about HK$91.76 million in the 2024/25 CRF/RIF round, ranking first among the eight UGC-funded universities in both number of projects and total CRF funding (see §2.2); in the two NSFC/RGC joint research schemes, PolyU also ranked in the top three (see §2.3). In other words, while PolyU trails comprehensive universities like HKU and CUHK in overall volume, it already has the strength to rank top in specific competitive grant schemes—it does not simply rely on size.

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