PolyU's Greater Bay Area and mainland China research footprint

A Shenzhen industry-academia-research building unveiled in 2000, more than a dozen translational research institutes scattered across the Greater Bay Area and inland cities, and 30,000 mainland alumni — this is the other network PolyU has quietly woven across mainland China over the past two decades. This document belongs to the "PolyU WILD · 09 Internationalisation" module, and focuses on the research footprint of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (hereafter "PolyU") in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) and mainland China: regional bases, the Shenzhen Research Institute, the Mainland Translational Research Institutes (MTRI) network, partner universities on the mainland, and the structure of mainland student intake.

Content on overseas/global collaboration (international alliances, overseas exchange, double-degree programmes) is covered in the companion document global-partnerships.md; PolyU's professional training and academic alliances along the Belt and Road ("B&R") route are covered in mainland-and-gba-3.md; the proposed "PolyU Foshan Campus" — a project under a signed framework agreement that has, upon verification, stalled without being built to date — is treated separately in mainland-and-gba-2.md.

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# 1. Overview: PolyU's coordinates on the mainland

PolyU frames its GBA role as "supporting the development of the GBA is one of our strategic initiatives". In the University's own words on its Global page^※: "Enhancing our role to support the GBA development is one of our strategic initiatives."

Unlike some Hong Kong institutions that have established separately incorporated, degree-awarding partner campuses on the mainland (such as CUHK-Shenzhen or HKUST-Guangzhou), PolyU's mainland presence is centred on research translation, industry-academia collaboration, and talent-development bases. To date it has not established an independent degree-awarding campus on the mainland (the proposed Foshan campus, covered in mainland-and-gba-2.md, has been verified as not yet realised). Its mainland system broadly consists of three tiers:

According to the Mainland Development Office (MDO), PolyU has accumulated 2,300+ collaborative projects, 900+ partner universities and research institutions, and 30,000+ mainland alumni^※ across the mainland (distributed across 6 alumni networks).

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# 2. Shenzhen Research Institute — the fulcrum of the Bay Area footprint

PolyU Shenzhen Research Institute is PolyU's earliest and largest research base on the mainland.

Scale of research platforms. According to the MDO official page, the Shenzhen base houses over 10 laboratories and research units^※, including:

• 3 Shenzhen municipal key laboratories;
• 2 Shenzhen branches of state key laboratories;
• 1 cultivation base for a state key laboratory jointly established by the province and a ministry.

The institute is also recognised as a Guangdong Provincial new-type R&D institution, a Shenzhen technology transfer centre, and a Shenzhen and Nanshan District makerspace. Its core functions span five areas: R&D, technology transfer, innovation and entrepreneurship, talent development, and alumni engagement; its InnoHub@Shenzhen^※ incubator has nurtured a number of start-up teams.

Leadership (title as designation). According to PolyU announcements, the current Director of the Shenzhen Research Institute has, since 1 January 2025, been assumed by a Chair Professor of Artificial Intelligence^※ at PolyU (per the announcement of the Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence).

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# 3. Shenzhen/HTZ deployments: Qianhai, Futian, and summit platforms

Beyond the Shenzhen Research Institute, PolyU has additional deployments in the Shenzhen–Hong Kong cross-border innovation zone:

• Qianhai Translational Research Centre: Within the MTRI system, PolyU operates 1 Mainland Translational Research Centre (MTRC) in Qianhai (per the MTRI page^※).
• Futian/HTZ platforms: According to the University's Global page, PolyU is building on the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation Zone to develop platforms including PolyU-Shenzhen Technology and Innovation Research Institute^※.
• Greater Bay Area International Institute for Innovation (GBA I3): According to the University's Global page, PolyU is collaborating with Shenzhen University on the Greater Bay Area International Institute for Innovation (GBA I3)^※, oriented towards regional innovation talent development and research translation.
• Peng Cheng Laboratory collaboration: Joint research^※ in big data, artificial intelligence, robotics, blockchain, and smart healthcare.

Note: PolyU's Shenzhen/HTZ platforms have similar names but different establishment dates (some are recent additions); when citing, the University's corresponding pages should be treated as authoritative.

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# 4. Daya Bay and the Mainland Translational Research Institutes (MTRI) network

Beyond Shenzhen, PolyU extends its research network to other mainland cities in the form of Translational Research Institutes (MTRI).

# 4.1 Daya Bay Technology and Innovation Research Institute

• Agreement: According to PolyU news, on 13 May 2024, PolyU signed a cooperation agreement with the Huizhou Municipal Government and the Daya Bay Economic and Technological Development Zone to jointly establish the PolyU Daya Bay Technology and Innovation Research Institute^※.
• Focus areas: Four priority fields — new materials and new energy, green chemistry and sustainable catalysis, spatial computing and imaging, and green and smart manufacturing.
• Progress: The institute has partnered with 8 local enterprises to drive technology transfer; in July 2025 it further established an Artificial Intelligence Research Centre^※ to serve Huizhou's smart-industry transformation.

# 4.2 The Mainland Translational Research Institutes network (as of end-2025)

According to PolyU's Mainland Translational Research Institutes (MTRI)^※ page, as of end-2025 PolyU has established on the mainland:

• 2 institutes in Shenzhen (Nanshan, Futian);
• 12 Mainland Translational Research Institutes (MTRI), located in: Daya Bay, Hangzhou, Hefei, Jinjiang, Nanjing, Shaoxing, Wenzhou, Wuhan, Wuxi, Xingguo, Zhongshan, and Zibo;
• 1 Mainland Translational Research Centre (MTRC) in Qianhai.

That is, as of end-2025, PolyU's mainland research entities total approximately 15 sites. Foshan does not appear on this MTRI/institute list — the Foshan collaboration is of a different nature (a university-enterprise joint research centre), covered in mainland-and-gba-2.md.

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# 5. Mainland regional bases and university partnerships

PolyU operates 6 regional bases on the mainland: Beijing Centre, Chengdu Base, Hangzhou Base, Shanghai Centre, Shenzhen Research Institute, and Xi'an Base^※, each with distinct core functions spanning education, research, networking, and student development.

On mainland university partnerships, according to the MDO, PolyU has established multi-level collaboration with leading mainland universities, including 9 MOE-approved programmes. Representative partner institutions and their forms of collaboration (compiled from MDO public materials) are listed below:

Collaboration with mainland institutions falls broadly into three types: research level (joint applications to the National Natural Science Foundation of China, national key R&D programmes, etc.), talent level (joint doctoral training, student exchange, postdoctoral visits), and translation level (pushing Hong Kong research towards the mainland's industrial end through MTRI and InnoHub nodes). PolyU is also a member of several mainland/regional university alliances (such as the University Alliance of the Silk Road; see mainland-and-gba-3.md).

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# 6. A history of mainland engagement: from training collaborations to research bases

PolyU's engagement with the mainland is not a recent development but a thread traceable over more than two decades:

PolyU has long engaged with the mainland along three lines — "education, research, and technology transfer" — with the core being research and industry-academia bases, not degree-awarding campuses. This shape is intrinsically linked to why the Foshan campus has yet to materialise (see the dedicated article).

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# 7. A role in national strategies

PolyU aligns its mainland footprint with national strategies, principally in the following areas:

• New industrialisation / high-end manufacturing: According to related reporting, PolyU aligns with the Hong Kong SAR Government's new-industrialisation policy to serve high-end manufacturing upgrades in the GBA (per the EurekAlert release^※, PolyU has developed a third-generation intelligent in-situ laser melt-pool monitoring technology to empower advanced manufacturing in the GBA).
• Space research: PolyU has built instruments for the nation's deep-space exploration programmes (lunar and Mars missions); in April 2026, together with the Zhuhai Space Centre, it launched a space-science education month^※ on China Space Day, aimed at young people across the GBA (as relayed on the University's page; see the research module).
• Green development and the "dual carbon" goals: The Daya Bay Institute's new-energy/green-chemistry direction serves the national "dual carbon" strategy and industrial transformation.

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# 8. Mainland student intake and GBA student mobility

# 8.1 Mainland students at PolyU

Mainland students form PolyU's largest non-local student group. Among more than 14,000 non-local students University-wide, mainland students account for the largest share, particularly at postgraduate level: by internal statistical measures, mainland students constitute roughly 60–70% of all non-local students (an internal estimate; the University does not publish a year-by-year breakdown).

• Undergraduate: Mainland students are mainly admitted via HKDSE-equivalent qualifications or the mainland admissions route (early admission in some provinces and cities);
• Postgraduate taught programmes (PGT): A large number of mainland students apply through PolyU's joint admissions arrangements for Hong Kong universities;
• Research postgraduate (RPg/PhD): Mainland students account for a significant share of those funded by the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme (HKPFS), PolyU scholarships, and similar awards; PolyU runs admissions promotion activities in more than a dozen mainland provinces and maintains long-term links with key secondary schools (per MDO materials).

# 8.2 GBA student mobility

In recent years the Hong Kong Government and PolyU have actively promoted "two-way" student mobility in the GBA:

• Mainland–Hong Kong reciprocal exchange: PolyU maintains student exchange arrangements with South China institutions including South China University of Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Shenzhen University, and Jinan University;
• GBA internship programmes: In connection with PolyU's compulsory "Work-Integrated Education (WIE)" credits, selected enterprise internships in Shenzhen/Guangzhou are recognised as WIE providers (see global-partnerships-3.md);
• GBA alumni network: The PolyU Shenzhen Research Institute / GBA Mainland Development Office coordinates networking and resource-matching for approximately 30,000 mainland alumni.

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# 9. What distinguishes PolyU's mainland footprint

Compared with other Hong Kong institutions' models of mainland engagement, PolyU's characteristics are:

The overall orientation of PolyU's mainland footprint is "Hong Kong R&D/education → mainland industrial translation" — a two-way flow — rather than a branch-campus model with independent degree-awarding powers. This choice is highly consistent with its applied, industry-academia tradition — and it also happens to explain why that "proposed branch campus" in Foshan has been under discussion for six years without materialising: it asks PolyU to be something it has never been.

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# Sources

• PolyU — Embracing Greater Bay Area Opportunities / Global (GBA strategy, GBA I3, Peng Cheng Laboratory, Futian institutes, 14,000+ non-local students) — official
• Mainland Development Office (MDO) — Regional Bases (6 regional bases, 2,300+ projects, 900+ partners, 30,000+ alumni, 9 MOE-approved programmes) — official
• MDO — Shenzhen Research Institute (extended campus, 10+ laboratories, 3 Shenzhen key labs, 2 state key lab branches) — official
• PolyU Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence — New Director of the Shenzhen Research Institute (took office 2025-01-01) — official
• PolyU Shenzhen Research Institute / InnoHub@Shenzhen official website — official
• Baidu Baike — Hong Kong Polytechnic University Shenzhen Research Institute (founded December 2000, industry-academia-research building) — secondary
• PolyU — Mainland Translational Research Institutes (MTRI: Shenzhen 2 + mainland 12 + Qianhai 1) — official
• PolyU news — Agreement with Huizhou Daya Bay to jointly build research institute (May 2024) — official
• PolyU news — Daya Bay Institute establishes AI Research Centre (July 2025) — official
• EurekAlert — PolyU third-generation intelligent laser melt-pool monitoring technology empowers GBA manufacturing — press

# Cross-references

• ./mainland-and-gba-2.md — The proposed "PolyU Foshan Campus": origins, stalemate, and current status
• ./mainland-and-gba-3.md — PolyU's Belt and Road projects: seven alliances, energy and railway training, Mongolia and Central Asia case studies
• ./global-partnerships.md — Global partner network and the role of GEO
• ./global-partnerships-2.md — Double/joint degrees (including the SUSTech joint doctoral programme)
• ../04-research/output-and-innovation.md — MTRI translation nodes and InnoHub Shenzhen
• ../00-overview/recent-developments-2020-2026.md — Key 2020s deployments including the Qianhai Innovation Centre and Daya Bay
• ../04-research/institutes-and-labs.md — Shenzhen key laboratories, Peng Cheng Laboratory collaboration
• ../11-medical-hospital/third-medical-school-bid.md — Northern Metropolis university town and healthcare deployment
• ../02-admissions/undergraduate-admissions.md — Mainland applicant pathways and scholarships
• ../16-mainland-students/README.md — Mainland students' experiences at PolyU (Module 16)
• ../08-finances/finances.md — Contribution of mainland partnerships to the University's external research funding

The difference between a "mainland campus" and a "mainland research institute": All of PolyU's mainland entities described in this article are research/knowledge-translation institutions (Shenzhen Research Institute, MTRI, Daya Bay Institute, etc.), not mainland campuses offering degree programmes. The "Hong Kong Polytechnic University (Foshan)" plan is currently in a stalled state, with no actual admissions or construction in place; see mainland-and-gba-2.md. If readers encounter claims elsewhere that "PolyU has set up a branch campus on the mainland", they should verify whether the institution in question is one of the research institutes above, rather than an approved and operational degree-awarding campus.

Data cut-off for this article: June 2026. The number of MTRI nodes and the project collaborations of individual institutes change over time; the current announcements on PolyU's MDO and MTRI official websites are authoritative.