According to independent surveys by Thomson Reuters, a US company which produces the Science Citation Index (SCI) database, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has scored three number ones in the world in terms of research performance in the disciplines of Civil Engineering, Construction and Building Technology, and Geomatics.
PolyU boasts a strong Faculty of Construction and Land Use (FCLU) which is also the only Faculty in Hong Kong's higher education sector that is fully devoted to supporting the advancement of construction industry. Over the past two decades, the Faculty has made great strides in advancing its research capability and reputation.
In the field of Civil Engineering, PolyU now leads all other universities in the world in both the total number of papers published in SCI journals over the five-year period from 2003 to 2007 and the total number of citations received by these papers over the six-year period from 2003-2008 from other SCI journal papers. Detailed analysis shows that PolyU is ahead of two top universities in the world, the University of Illinois and the University of California at Berkeley, both in the US. In terms of the average number of citations received per paper, PolyU's performance is matched by the University of Illinois but exceeds significantly that of the University of California at Berkeley. This shows that PolyU has excelled in producing civil engineering research publications both in terms of volume and impact.
In the field of Construction and Building Technology, PolyU also leads the University of California at Berkeley and the Technical University of Denmark by a large margin in both the total number of SCI journal papers published over the five-year period of 2003 to 2007 and the total number of citations received by these papers over the six-year period of 2003-2008 from other SCI journal papers. In terms of the average number of citations received per paper, PolyU's performance still lags behind these two universities.
PolyU is also taking the lead in the field of Geomatics. Another independent survey by Thomas Reuters showed that the Faculty's Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Infomatics is ranked first among similar departments in the world by research output in terms of both the total number of SCI papers and the total number of citations in the field of Geomatics over the period from 2003 to 2008.
Prof. Teng Jin-guang, Dean of the Faculty, said, "We are proud that our quality research in construction-related disciplines has been published and cited widely in the world, contributing to the development of these disciplines."
The University also fared well in the field of Environmental Engineering, now becoming the third most prolific university in the world, although its citation performance still lags behind the two most prolific universities significantly, again the University of California at Berkeley and the Technical University of Denmark.
PolyU has been highly successful in winning General Research Fund (GRF) grants (formerly Competitive Earmarked Research Grants) in the category of "Civil Engineering, Surveying, Building and Construction". For the nine consecutive years since 2001/2002, PolyU ranked first among all institutions in Hong Kong in both the amount of funding and the number of grants received. The latter has consistently been over 40% of all grants awarded by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council in this category since 2004/2005 and reached 47% in 2008/2009.
In addition to the publication of papers in high quality journals, PolyU experts in the Faculty have been actively engaged in deploying their research outcomes in solving challenging real-world problems, often through the offering of consultancy services to the industry. For example, in 2008/2009 and in 2007/08, the total consultancy turnovers of the Faculty stood at HK$21 million and HK$24 million respectively, accounting for 21% and 24% of the total consultancy turnovers of the university in the respective years.
The research achievements of the Faculty have no doubt contributed significantly to the international reputation of PolyU and particularly that of engineering research at PolyU. In terms of publication performance covering all engineering fields, PolyU is ranked 63rd in the world, according to the 2009 Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities conducted by the Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan. This ranking is based on objective indicators that evaluate both the quantity and quality of a university's scientific papers in SCI journals, and incorporates the assessment of both long-term and short-term achievements.
In the 2009 Times Higher Education-QS World University Ranking, the Engineering and IT discipline of PolyU is ranked 91st compared to 121st in the previous year, making PolyU one of the top 100 best universities in the engineering field.
