PolyU's Belt and Road portfolio: seven alliances, energy and rail training, Mongolia and Central Asia case studies

This document belongs to the "PolyU WILD · 09 Internationalisation" module. Information is current as of July 2026; key figures follow official sources and are cited in place. For the broader discussion of the global partner network (390+ institutions, 600+ agreements), see the sister document global-partnerships.md; for the Greater Bay Area and mainland China research footprint, see mainland-and-gba.md. This article goes through the facts and figures item by item along four threads — alliances, training, people, and funding. If you would rather first read the overall argument about what role PolyU actually plays in the Belt and Road Initiative (including the analysis of the "engineering aid" form), start with the companion piece 理大「一带一路」参与形态：三条主线与「工程援助」的边界.

One-line positioning: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is a significant node in Belt and Road higher-education cooperation — its twin pillars being the co-founding of the University Alliance of the Silk Road (UASR, 2015) and the cumulative training of more than 900 professionals from 44 countries/regions in its two flagship energy and railway training programmes — while seven multilateral alliances, dedicated funding schemes, and a range of scholarships together weave a cooperation network across the Belt and Road regions.

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# 1. What role does PolyU play in the Belt and Road landscape?

PolyU's Belt and Road work is coordinated by the Global Engagement Office (GEO), whose core mission is "to promote academic exchange, research collaboration and partnerships with institutions in Belt and Road regions." The point of entry is not a vague diplomatic gesture but a deep integration of PolyU's strengths in engineering, rehabilitation sciences, and applied technology — evidenced by verifiable training numbers and multilateral alliance memberships.

PolyU's participation under the Belt and Road framework operates at four levels:

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# 2. Which Belt and Road multilateral alliances has PolyU joined?

PolyU is a member or co-founding institution of seven Belt and Road-themed alliances, the largest number verifiable to date. According to the GEO official alliances page^※, the alliances are as follows:

PolyU's position in UASR is especially prominent. On 30 November 2024^※, as rotating chair, PolyU hosted in Hong Kong the "UASR Presidents' Forum and Executive Committee Meeting" under the theme "Global engagement strategies along the Silk Road," focusing on student mobility, university-industry collaboration, and the internationalisation of higher education. The forum also formed part of the celebrations for the 30th anniversary of PolyU's university status. In April 2026, coinciding with Xi'an Jiaotong University's 130th-anniversary celebrations, the UASR Executive Council met in Xi'an with 10 member institutions in attendance — PolyU, as a co-founder, continues to participate in the alliance's annual governance rhythm.

The alliances are not name-only lists but platforms with real activity, and recent developments suggest PolyU's participation in several of them is moving from "member" toward "regular":

• ANSO (Alliance of International Science Organizations): after joining at the Third General Assembly in November 2023^※, PolyU attended the ANSO General Assembly in Beijing on 30–31 October 2025, alongside more than 80 delegates from 51+ member organisations, introducing its educational vision in its capacity as a new member.
• UCMSR (University Consortium of 21st Century Maritime Silk Road): on 12 June 2026, the second UCMSR University Presidents' Forum was held at Xiamen University under the theme "Connecting the world via the Maritime Silk Road, forging the future through digital intelligence," attended by over 150 university leaders; PolyU was represented by Professor Yang Quan-min (Prof. Yang Quanmin), Vice President (Student and Global Affairs). The consortium now covers 73 universities in 20 countries.

These forums and council meetings are where alliances turn from "membership lists" into actual agendas — presidents discuss joint programmes, credit recognition, and collaborative research, not vague expressions of intent. Different alliances also have clearly delineated thematic focuses: UASR covers comprehensive educational cooperation, ASRTU and ACNET-EngTech concentrate on engineering and technology, ANSO is built around international science organisations, UCMSR corresponds to the maritime Silk Road, the CPEC consortium connects to the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor, and BRAIA specialises in aerospace. That a single university spans seven alliances across different themes reflects how well PolyU's discipline structure — applied, engineering-led — aligns with the topics at hand along the Belt and Road, and also means its regional footprint is not staked on any single area: it connects both to the overland Silk Road led by Xi'an Jiaotong University and the maritime Silk Road led by Xiamen University.

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# 3. The flagship energy training programme: nine years, 44 countries, more than 900 people — what lies behind the numbers?

The "Belt and Road Advanced Professional Development Programme in Power and Energy" is the largest and longest-running single project in PolyU's Belt and Road education work, jointly organised by PolyU, Xi'an Jiaotong University (XJTU), the State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC), and the Hongkong Electric Company (HK Electric).

The programme was launched in 2018^※ and by 2026 had run its ninth edition. Core indicators:

Looked at over the full timeline, the programme's scale has not grown linearly but has moved through distinct peaks and troughs. The programme operates under the Silk Road International Engineering School (SRISE) co-founded by PolyU and Xi'an Jiaotong University; within three years of its 2018 launch (by 2020) it had already trained over 200 professionals^※. 2022 saw the historical peak for a single edition, when 319 energy professionals from 26 countries/regions completed the programme — far exceeding the 2024 (26) and 2026 (45) intakes. This fluctuation tracks changes in training format (online/offline), pandemic controls, and thematic focus by year, and should not be read simplistically as the programme "cooling down."

Note: single-edition attendance and the "cumulative 2018–2026 total of more than 900 from 44 countries" are two different statistical bases — the former counts attendees in one edition, the latter is the cumulative training headcount across nine editions. They should not be conflated in citation.

In June 2024^※, the four parties signed an agreement extending the collaboration for four years to 2028, with the next-phase focus spelled out: conducting field research in Belt and Road countries to develop localised solutions for their power infrastructure. Professor H.C. Man, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, said at the extension ceremony that PolyU, as a founding member of UASR, had been deeply engaged in Belt and Road educational cooperation for over a decade.

Each training edition runs for about two weeks, with lectures, seminars, and site visits covering State Grid training facilities and national key laboratories in Xi'an and Jinan, as well as HK Electric's Lamma Power Station and research institutions in the Hong Kong Science Park. The 2026 (ninth) edition took "AI-empowered new power systems" as its theme, engaging directly with carbon neutrality and energy security.

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# 4. Railway training: what has the three-way alliance of PolyU, Beijing Jiaotong University, and the MTR Academy achieved?

On 26 August 2024, PolyU, Beijing Jiaotong University (BJTU), and the MTR Academy signed a three-year cooperation agreement^※ to jointly launch the "Belt and Road Advanced Professional Development Programme in Railway Transportation," with the goal of cultivating railway professionals for Belt and Road countries/regions.

The core framework: under the agreement, at least one training edition is held per year, with flexibility to expand into other areas of cooperation. The first edition officially launched in April 2025, with 44 senior railway managers and academics from 13 countries/regions taking part.

The training content pairs academic rigour with practical exposure: lectures and interactive seminars took place on the PolyU and BJTU campuses, while site visits covered the MTR Ho Tung Lau Depot and Tai Wai Training Centre (including smart railway technologies such as VR driving simulators), the PolyU Smart Railway Research Laboratory, and BJTU research facilities. The agreement's positioning is clear — to "promote railway talent development as well as technological exchange and collaboration among the Belt and Road countries and regions, with a view to contributing to the sustainable development of infrastructure, economy and people's livelihood"^※.

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# 5. Beyond engineering and railways: who else does PolyU train? Tanzania and the cross-professional programme

Beyond the two flagship power and railway programmes, PolyU's Belt and Road training network reaches two further groups: young professionals from developing countries, and practising professionals in Hong Kong and mainland China. One stream "brings in," the other "sends out" — together they map the complete coverage of the training network.

The Tanzania Leadership Programme represents the "bringing in young talent" model. According to public reporting from June 2019^※, the programme was organised by PolyU's Institute of Advanced Executive Education, with a first cohort of 30 young Tanzanian professionals drawn from telecommunications, information technology, marketing, social enterprise, manufacturing, sustainable development, finance, tourism, and public health. The one-week programme comprised expert lectures, site visits in Hong Kong and Shenzhen (including PolyU innovation facilities, the Hong Kong City Gallery, Sha Tin new town, a textile upcycling factory, and the Huawei Shenzhen campus), and knowledge-sharing sessions, focusing on five areas — green manufacturing, urban planning, international trade information technology, tourism, and public health — and required participants to formulate action plans for Tanzania's development. Dr. Miranda Lou, then PolyU Deputy President and Provost, said: "PolyU has been playing its role to nurture young talents for the Belt and Road Initiative"^※. Programmes like this package PolyU's traditional strengths — "urban planning," "green manufacturing" — into a week-long intensive course for the future managers of Belt and Road countries.

The Belt and Road Cross-Professional Advancement Programme, by contrast, exemplifies the "equipping local professionals to go out" model. According to material released in late 2018^※, the year-long programme received HK$2.3 million from the Hong Kong SAR Government's "Professional Services Advancement Support Scheme" administered by the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau, with support from 25 professional bodies, spanning accounting, finance, insurance, law, real estate, construction, urban planning, surveying, and engineering. It targeted 650 professionals and entrepreneurs from Hong Kong and mainland China, through seven workshops plus two cross-professional sharing sessions, running from January 2019, with content covering feasibility assessment, risk management, cross-cultural management, dispute resolution, and international project management for Belt and Road infrastructure projects.

Read side by side, the two programmes reveal the two directions of PolyU's training network design: one brings young people from Belt and Road countries in to learn from Hong Kong's experience; the other equips Hong Kong and mainland professionals to go out. Neither involves engineering construction itself — both work on the "people" and "rules" around engineering. Section 11 elaborates on this point.

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# 6. What is the UASR "Engineering Medicine" sub-alliance, and where do its members come from?

On 13 December 2024, PolyU and Xi'an Jiaotong University jointly established the "UASR Sub-alliance of Integration Innovation in Engineering Medicine." According to the GEO announcement^※:

• Co-founders: PolyU Department of Rehabilitation Sciences × The First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University
• Founding members: around 50 institutions from 18 Belt and Road countries
• Core mission: "to integrate medicine and engineering, promoting the translation and application of technological advances in tackling real-world clinical challenges"

The sub-alliance sits at the intersection of PolyU's rehabilitation science strength (leading in Asia) and the Belt and Road platform, with the intent of extending engineering translation pathways to regions along the route where healthcare systems are under-resourced.

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# 7. Why is PolyU's cooperation with Mongolia representative?

Mongolia is a key overland node on the Belt and Road, and PolyU's cooperation with the country illustrates the full path from MoU to substantive academic exchange under the Belt and Road framework.

On 15 January 2024, PolyU's Department of Rehabilitation Sciences and the Department of Physical and Occupational Therapy at the Mongolian National University of Medical Sciences (MNUMS) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU)^※, marking PolyU's first formal cooperation with a Mongolian higher education institution. The MoU built on a pilot visit in May 2023 supported by PolyU's Belt and Road funding scheme, during which 12 PolyU rehabilitation sciences students travelled to Mongolia to learn about occupational therapy practice.

The exchange has deepened steadily since:

The case illustrates the disciplinary character of PolyU's Belt and Road work: using professional expertise in rehabilitation sciences as the medium to build sustainable academic partnerships in Belt and Road countries with limited resources.

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# 8. The Central Asia delegation: what did the 2026 Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan trip achieve?

Central Asia sits at the core of the Silk Road Economic Belt, yet PolyU's previous presence there had leaned relatively heavily toward engineering training, with student mobility a weaker link. A senior delegation from 31 May to 5 June 2026 filled that gap. According to the GEO Belt and Road news section, a delegation led by Professor Wong Wing-tak (Prof. Alexander Wai), Deputy President and Provost of PolyU, visited Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and reached two concrete cooperation agreements:

• a student exchange MoU with Nazarbayev University;
• cooperation with New Uzbekistan University and the "El-Yurt Umidi" foundation, covering professional internships in areas including cybersecurity, robotics, and drone systems, plus scholarships for Uzbekistani students.

The significance of the trip lies not in its scale but in filling the gap: previously PolyU's presence in Central Asia was carried mainly by its alliance memberships in ASRTU (the Sino-Russian Technical Universities alliance) and UASR, with no concrete student exchange agreements. The Nazarbayev University MoU and the El-Yurt Umidi internship arrangements turn the abstract identity of "alliance member" into concrete channels that students can actually apply to and participate in.

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# 9. How do Belt and Road students study at PolyU, and what funding channels exist?

PolyU has woven Belt and Road student support into multiple policy lines. According to the University's March 2026 report^※, of the approximately 1,100 newly enrolled non-local students in the 2025/26 academic year, more than 30% came from Belt and Road countries/regions.

The main scholarships and funding channels are as follows:

Beyond scholarships, the GEO runs two academic funding schemes supporting faculty-level Belt and Road work:

• Belt and Road Network Initiatives Scheme: funds departments and faculties to organise Belt and Road-related seminars and academic activities; up to HK$200,000 per batch^※ on a 1:1 matching basis, with each faculty allowed to submit one application per year.
• KC Wong Belt and Road Visiting Scholars Scheme: supports up to ten academics or educators from Belt and Road institutions per year to visit PolyU for one to two weeks of academic exchange.

These two are PolyU's own university-level schemes, serving faculties and academics. For PolyU undergraduates travelling out to Belt and Road regions, there is a separate government-level funding route — the Scheme for Subsidy on Exchange to Belt and Road Regions (SSEBR). According to GEO's outgoing student funding page^※, SSEBR is one of the outward exchange funding channels PolyU officially lists, open to undergraduates at all UGC-funded institutions across Hong Kong — it is not exclusive to PolyU. Under the published government scheme parameters, the non-means-tested SSEBR provides up to about HK$18,000 per exchange, while the means-tested version can be received up to twice with a cap of about HK$60,000 (as converted under the student finance scale). By design, a student who has already received funding to exchange at one Belt and Road region must go to a different Belt and Road region to apply again — an incentive to spread students' footsteps across more Belt and Road countries rather than repeating the same destination.

Note: SSEBR amounts reflect the Hong Kong government scheme parameters, not PolyU's own scheme; the exact amounts and application rules follow the government's announcement for the relevant year. For where SSEBR sits within PolyU's broader outward exchange funding framework, see global-partnerships-3.md.

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# 10. Beyond alliances and training: what other concrete cross-border collaborations and activities exist?

# Hexi Corridor study trip (2024)

From 20–29 May 2024, PolyU and Xi'an Jiaotong University jointly ran the "UASR Hexi Corridor study trip," with 30 PolyU students and 8 Xi'an Jiaotong University students taking part. The group followed the Hexi Corridor — the core artery of the ancient Silk Road — visiting historical and cultural sites on the ground, using the historical setting to speak to the contemporary Belt and Road theme. It is a textbook case of the "academic alliance + cultural immersion" model.

# Belt and Road Youth Development Summit (2025)

In December 2025, two PolyU undergraduates from Nepal and Mongolia attended the "4th Belt and Road Youth Development Summit," exchanging views on digital innovation with more than 400 diplomats and youth representatives — an instance of PolyU students engaging directly in policy dialogue through Belt and Road alliance platforms.

# Forum of Belt and Road Alliance Founding Institutions (2023)

On 7 July 2023, PolyU hosted the "Forum of Belt and Road Alliance Founding Institutions" to mark the tenth anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative. 18 scholars from seven Belt and Road academic alliances took part, focusing on "talent cultivation, knowledge transfer and research development," and issued a joint statement pledging to advance high-quality Belt and Road higher-education cooperation.

# Advanced dielectric materials symposium (2026)

From 15–18 May 2026, the Department of Applied Physics in PolyU's Faculty of Science, together with the Dielectric Physics Committee of the Chinese Physical Society, hosted the symposium on advanced dielectric materials, with more than 100 scholars^※ attending from mainland China, Russia, Australia, Thailand, and Hong Kong. The symposium received funding from the Belt and Road Network Initiatives Scheme. Thematic academic symposia of this kind sign no engineering contracts and carry no capital flows, yet they are where long-term research collaborations among Belt and Road scientists begin — a co-authored paper or a joint project often grows out of just such a conference room. It is a thread of the Belt and Road network that is easily overlooked. To be honest: PolyU has not published a unified list of "Belt and Road joint research projects"; its research activity along the route is dispersed across departments, alliances, and conferences, and cannot be captured in a single number.

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# 11. How should PolyU's "engineering aid" be understood? — No record of contracted overseas construction

Mention "Belt and Road" and "engineering" together and one readily wonders whether PolyU has built bridges, railways, or power stations along the route. On the basis of the public sources cited in this article, no record exists of PolyU undertaking overseas Belt and Road infrastructure construction as a contracting entity.

This is not to say PolyU is "not involved in engineering" — rather, its level of involvement is fundamentally different. Physical infrastructure along the route — major projects such as cross-border railways and power stations — is typically built by engineering firms under design–procure–construct (EPC) and similar models; that is the contractors' battlefield. As an applied university, PolyU supplies what surrounds these projects: knowledge, people, and rules — the power and energy training of Section 3, the railway talent training of Section 4, the urban planning and green manufacturing leadership training and cross-border project feasibility training of Section 5, and the joint research and academic conferences of Section 10. In one sentence: PolyU works on "the people and methods behind engineering," not "the rebar and concrete of engineering itself."

PolyU disciplines such as urban planning, structural engineering, surveying, and rehabilitation sciences engage deeply with Belt and Road issues at the training and advisory level, but equating that with "PolyU building roads and bridges overseas" would be a misreading. The honest formulation is that PolyU's Belt and Road engineering role is capacity building and talent development, carried through alliances, training programmes, visiting scholars, and joint research — not engineering construction. Any claim of specific overseas infrastructure contracting should not be attributed to PolyU without support from official PolyU or reliable engineering records. As for the broader international debates about debt and geopolitics surrounding the Belt and Road Initiative, those are matters at the level of states and contracting firms, not of PolyU's training and academic cooperation as a university; this article takes a position only on PolyU's verifiable institutional conduct.

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# 12. What is the disciplinary centre of gravity in PolyU's Belt and Road cooperation?

Across the sections above, PolyU's Belt and Road work shows a clear applied-discipline orientation:

This aligns closely with PolyU's tradition of building its identity on applied science and technology — with engineering-aid-type and professional-talent-training-type cooperation as the dominant modes, rather than purely academic conferences or knowledge-sharing collaborations. And the clarification in Section 11 makes clear that the substance of this "aid" is capacity building, not engineering construction.

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