Communication

In many organisations, significant hierarchical gaps exist within work teams, raising the question of how frontline employees can strive for greater opportunities for upward mobility in their careers. A recent study by the Department of Psychology at Lingnan University finds that employees who proactively seek work resources in their jobs, are willing to learn, and at the same time possess higher emotional intelligence, have significantly higher job performance and work engagement. The research team points out that these strategies help employees create more favourable conditions for long-term career development in complex workplace environments. The research findings have been published in top-tier international academic journal Journal of Business and Psychology.

In order to understand Hong Kong citizens' views on the development of gerontechnology, Lingnan University recently held a public opinion survey. The results show that gerontechnology products related to healthcare and exercise are of the greatest interest to the public, although about 60 per cent of respondents find the cost of such products prohibitively high, which presents a barrier to purchase. At the same time, over 90 per cent hope that the government will increase support for elderly service organisations to adopt gerontechnology, and for research and development. This would stimulate growth and the silver economy, ultimately benefiting more older adults and caregivers.

In today’s highly competitive society, many parents insist their children learn more and learn faster in order to “win at the starting line”. A recent study by the Department of Psychology at Lingnan University examining the relationship between stress and creativity has found that different types of stress, such as competition, noise, confined environments, and engaging in challenging tasks, may actually reduce children’s creative performance, but adolescents and adults tend to show more innovative ability under moderate competitive pressure. The research findings have been published in top-tier international academic journal Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, and provide important insights in workplace management strategies, and for the education sector and creative industries.

GNSS Indonesia Summit & Expo 2025, the first international-scale GNSS forum in Indonesia, was successfully held from 19–23 November 2025 at Universitas Indonesia, Depok. This five-day event highlighted how global navigation satellite systems are becoming increasingly crucial across various sectors, including transportation, precision agriculture, disaster mitigation, environmental monitoring, and national digital transformation.

Lingnan University will confer four honorary fellowships, recognising the outstanding professional achievements and valuable contributions to the community and the education sector of the distinguished recipients, Mr Chan Chun-ying, BBS, JP; The Hon Ip Kwok-him, GBM, GBS, JP; Mr Lam Tin-fuk, GBS, JP; and Mr Ng Leung-sing, SBS, JP, whose biographies follow:

A first of its kind, the report from Springer Nature, in partnership with Overton, draws on more than 12 million policy documents to uncover how academic research is influencing real-world policy tied to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Today, 1 November, Lingnan University held its Information Day “Your Future Begins Now” for undergraduate admissions, introducing a new flexible arrangement offering more tailored study pathways for Joint University Programmes Admissions System (JUPAS) applicants with diverse talents. The hybrid event featured over 70 interactive sessions with the latest information on programmes, admissions requirements, and study guidance, so as to familiarise secondary school students and parents with campus life. Highlights included AI-focused lectures presented by the Departments of Chinese, Philosophy, and Translation, and Lingnan scholars also demonstrated how artificial intelligence (AI) proposes innovative approaches on traditional Chinese culture, ethical decision-making, and language learning.

The campus of Lingnan University became a whirlwind journey across continents as the Office of Global Education (OGE) and Office of Student Affairs (OSA) successfully hosted International Day 2025 “Around the World” recently, a dynamic celebration of cultural diversity that brought the globe to the doorstep and drew over 800 participants, marking a remarkable 60 per cent increase in attendance.

The Lingnan University Institute for Advanced Study (LUIAS) held a ceremony on campus today, 15 October, to confer the title of Senior Lingnan Scholar on Prof Xu Zidong, former Professor and Head of the Department of Chinese at Lingnan University, in recognition of his important contributions to modern Chinese literature. Prof Xu gave a talk entitled “The Beginning of Modern Chinese Literature”, sharing insights from his latest publication, The Collected Works of Xu Zidong with students and faculty, and exploring key issues in modern Chinese literature. The lecture provided a platform for cultural dialogue and exchange, and was attended by about 700 students, faculty, and bibliophiles.

Ateneo de Manila University and Science Communicators Philippines explored how scientific knowledge can be better shared, understood, and applied for the public good.

Lingnan University was commissioned to conduct a Hong Kong School Children Happiness Annual Survey in 2012. In 2017/18 this annual study was augmented by including a survey on life education in schools. Since 2023, the Lingnan team was joined by the Department of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine of the University of Hong Kong, the Department of Paediatrics of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong Paediatric Society. The 2024/2025 study began with an invitation sent to all Hong Kong’s subvented schools in March 2023. We enlisted a total of 10 primary schools and 8 secondary schools in this study, covering 1752 primary school students, 1982 secondary school students, and 116 teachers.

To encourage new students to explore and take part in all the different aspects of university life, Lingnan held a key orientation activity, its Campus Life Carnival, last night, 4 September. Over a thousand new students visited the 40 stands set up by student societies, university teams and units encouraged new students to join, gave advice, and explained Lingnan’s many extracurricular activities.

A new study by an SUTD researcher and his collaborators introduces a pooled mining attack that overturns a long-standing assumption about Bitcoin’s security economics.

The School of Graduate Studies (GS) of Lingnan University in Hong Kong hosted the “Empower Your Future” Lingnan Postgraduate Orientation 2025 today, 28 August, welcoming about 3,600 new postgraduate students for the 2025/26 academic year, the highest number ever recorded. The cohort includes students from the Hong Kong SAR, Macau, Mainland China, Canada, France, Portugal, Switzerland, the US, Vanuatu, Ghana, and Cameroon enrolled in taught master’s, doctoral, and MPhil/PhD programmes.

Cell-free (CF) MIMO network is emerging as a key B5G/6G technology for improved connectivity, spectral efficiency, and service quality. This work proposes a novel CF-MIMO signal detector that can reduce the energy consumption by up to 58%.

Lingnan University's science and innovation teams have achieved outstanding results at the 11th Silicon Valley International Invention Festival 2025 (SVIIF) in their first-ever participation. All 13 participating projects, covering areas such as artificial intelligence (AI), smart manufacturing, and intelligent transportation, won awards, including 8 gold and 5 silver medals. One of the projects, the AI-based Fencing Training and Assessment System, led by Prof Sam Kwong Tak-wu, Associate Vice-President (Strategic Research), also received a special award ⸺ Prize of the International Federation of Inventors’ Association (IFIA), making Lingnan the Hong Kong higher education institution that won the highest number of total awards and gold medals at this year’s festival.

Whispers in the gut, "Memory foam" for space 🚀, Potassium power 🔋& Intelligent multitasking. Read all in the latest Editor's Choice

Singapore-led study shows specialised support cells in the gut form direct, neuron-like connections to deliver precise instructions to stem cells; Overturns long-held beliefs about how gut cells communicate; Opens new paths for treating colon cancer and IBD

China sees a strong increase in research output and tops the global list, with Asian institutions rising in prominence. Japan, South Korea and India are in the top 10, with the latter two countries increasing their adjusted share from 2023. Meanwhile, Singapore saw a higher rank within the top 20 list.

To further expand collaboration with top-tier Mainland universities, a delegation led by the members of the Council and senior management of Lingnan University visited Beijing from 27 to 29 May for meetings with the Ministry of Education and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), and also visited Tsinghua University and Peking University to foster new partnerships in higher education.

First national Transformative Agreement (TA) in Malaysia and Southeast Asia boosts global visibility and accessibility for research from all of Malaysia’s higher education institutions

Cosmic hide-and-seek, Controlling quantum light, Thinking face robot, Live DNA folding & Menopause-dementia link. Plus latest SciCom Coffee talk. Read all in the latest Editor's Choice.

SUTD researchers have developed a new class of algorithms that enable low-latency, real-time computing and data transmission in large-scale satellite networks, which could lead to smarter, faster global connectivity.

Organised by the Education Bureau (EDB) of the HKSAR Government, with the support from the Hong Kong and South China Historical Research Programme (HKSCHRP) of Lingnan University, the 2024/25 Territory-wide Junior Secondary Chinese History and Culture Quiz Final and Prize Presentation Ceremony was held at the Chan Tak Tai Auditorium of Lingnan University today, 17 May. The 12 finalist teams were selected from over 22,000 students from more than 145 secondary schools across Hong Kong. The number of participants has increased by 38% over the 16,000 who took part in last year's inaugural event, which highlights the competition’s success in stimulating interest in Chinese history and culture in young people as well as the Government's achievement in promoting patriotic education.

To promote the use of big data and artificial intelligence (AI) for innovation and marketing, the Department of Marketing and International Business at Lingnan University hosted the Hong Kong Quant Marketing Conference 2025 at the Hong Kong Gold Coast Hotel today, 14 May. “Data-Driven Quant Marketing Insights for Business Impact” shares fresh research findings within the industry, and examines how quantitative approaches can solve real-world marketing challenges in healthcare, e-commerce, legal policy, and digital experimentation. The conference was attended by over 180 scholars, industry leaders, and postgraduate students from Hong Kong, the Greater Bay Area, and international institutions.

With the rapid development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and increasing environmental challenges, global catastrophic risks have gone beyond traditional natural disasters to raise controversial ethical issues. In view of this, the Hong Kong Catastrophic Risk Centre (HKCRC) of Lingnan University has introduced a new, free, online bilingual self-learning course on Ethics and Global Catastrophic Risks, taught by international authorities in philosophy and ethics. Designed to help people understand and cope with the complex landscape of global disaster risks through eight modules, the new programme, launched in late February this year, incorporates in-depth, real-life examples in AI, the environment, and the sciences, and has already attracted more than 8,000 participants from Mainland China, Hong Kong SAR, South Asia, the US, and Europe. It is now open to the public at no charge.

Quasicrystals are intriguing materials with long-range atomic order that lack periodicity. It has been a longstanding question whether antiferromagnetism, while commonly found in regular crystals, is even possible in quasicrystals. In a new study, researchers have finally answered this question, providing the first definitive neutron diffraction evidence of antiferromagnetism in a real icosahedral quasicrystal. This discovery opens a new research area of quasiperiodic antiferromagnets, with potential applications in spintronics.

Examining group effects on motivation in English as second language classes

Lingnan University Library has recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Fudan University Library at the Handan Campus, Fudan University. This MoU marks the first collaborative agreement between Lingnan and Fudan University, with the aim of fostering a closer partnership, harnessing complementary strengths, and facilitating in-depth exchanges across a wide array of academic and professional domains.

Lingnan University in Hong Kong is gaining ongoing recognition in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2025, with more subjects being ranked, reinforcing its growing academic presence on the global stage. This year, the University has twice as many subjects recognised, increasing from five to ten, with new disciplines—Communication and Media Studies, Sociology, Modern Languages, Education and Training, and Business and Management Studies—being included. While some of the University's latest advancements have yet to be reflected in this round of rankings, these achievements reaffirm Lingnan's dedication to advancing teaching and research. With a strong commitment to integrating digital-age knowledge and innovation, the University continues to prepare for new heights in the future.