Lingnan hosts the Research & KT Excellence Awards Presentation Ceremony 2026. (From left: Prof Xin Yao, Vice-President (Research and Innovation) and Tong Tin Sun Chair Professor of Machine Learning of Lingnan University; Dr Patrick Wong Chi-kwong, Chairman of the Court; The Hon Andrew Yao Cho-fai, Chairman of the Council; Ms Carrie Leung Ka-lai, Treasurer of the Council; Mr Augustine Lui Ngok-che, Chairman of the Lingnan Education Organization and Court Member; and Prof Sam Kwong Tak-wu, Associate Vice-President (Strategic Research), J.K. Lee Chair Professor of Computational Intelligence, and Dean of the School of Graduate Studies.)
Lingnan University recently hosted the Research and Knowledge Transfer Excellence Awards Presentation Ceremony 2026. At the “Excellence Beyond Achievement Where Technology Meets Humanity” ceremony, 53 Lingnan scholars were presented with the Outstanding Researcher Award, the Early Career Researcher Award, and the Research & Knowledge Transfer Fund Award for their exceptional contributions to academic research and knowledge transfer that advance societal development. The University’s overall innovation and technology performance reached new heights in the 2025/26 academic year, with the number of granted patents for research projects increasing sixfold year-on-year to set a new record.
Officiating guests at the ceremony included the Hon Andrew Yao Cho-fai, Chairman of the Council of Lingnan University; Ms Carrie Leung Ka-lai, Treasurer of the Council; Dr Patrick Wong Chi-kwong, Chairman of the Court; Mr Augustine Lui Ngok-che, Chairman of the Lingnan Education Organization and Court Member; Prof Xin Yao, Vice-President (Research and Innovation) and Tong Tin Sun Chair Professor of Machine Learning; and Prof Sam Kwong Tak-wu, Associate Vice-President (Strategic Research), J.K. Lee Chair Professor of Computational Intelligence, and Dean of the School of Graduate Studies.
The Hon Andrew Yao Cho-fai congratulated the awardees and praised the University’s rapid progress in research projects and its increasing global influence, saying that “As an industrialist and commercial-sector representative in the Legislative Council, I firmly believe that the Hong Kong SAR’s industrial and commercial community must actively embrace new technologies. Leveraging its geographical proximity to the Northern Metropolis, Lingnan has launched the innovation and entrepreneurship platform ‘LU Xcelerator’ (LUX) to deepen industry-academia-research collaboration and facilitate the translation of university research into commercial applications, infusing new momentum into traditional industrial and commercial industries and opening broader entrepreneurial opportunities for researchers and students.”
Prof Xin Yao said, “Lingnan University has always been committed to fostering an interdisciplinary research environment. In the 2025/26 academic year, the number of granted patents for research projects increased sixfold year-on-year to set a new record, fully demonstrating the research impact of our academic and research staff. In recent years, the University has successfully diversified its funding sources. The University has also secured major grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Environment and Conservation Fund, the Lantau Conservation Fund, and the Innovation and Technology Commission, which will enable research teams to take cutting-edge technologies out of the laboratory and translate them into practical applications that deliver real impact and benefit society.”
Prof Sam Kwong Tak-wu said, “We are seeing more grants, more patents, more knowledge transfer and more entrepreneurship. And this is a trend we want to build on. The research is important. But the people it can help are just as important. This is also why interdisciplinary research matters at Lingnan. We bring together the strengths of the arts, sciences, technology and social sciences, connecting research with education, and ideas with the needs of society. Let us keep pushing boundaries, keep working together, and keep turning knowledge into impact.”
Lingnan has secured grants for 49 research projects in the 2026/27 competitive funding rounds of the Research Grants Council (RGC), with total funding approaching HK$27 million. The three key projects with the most substantial grants are: a study that received nearly HK$900,000, led by Prof S. Joe Qin, President and Wai Kee Kau Chair Professor of Data Science, titled “Long-term Error Augmented Predictive (LEAP) Learning with Transformers for Smart Building Cooling Load Predictions”, and two projects that each received over HK$1 million: “Trustworthy Stablecoins: Coordinating Centralised and Decentralised Finance at Scale”, led by Prof Alexandru-Codru Preda, Professor of the Department of Sociology and Social Policy, and “Unravelling the Genomic Basis of Coral-Eating Phestilla Nudibranchs: Host Selection and Climate Resilience”, led by Prof Jack Ip Chi-ho, Associate Professor (Presidential Early Career Scholar) of the Division of Science. (See Table 1 for details).
The University has recently risen dramatically in major international rankings. Lingnan came 84th in its debut appearance in the Times Higher Education (THE) Asia University Rankings, directly entered Asia’s top 100 and in the QS World University Rankings 2027, it climbed sharply by over 120 places to 581st, its biggest leap in recent years. Furthermore, Lingnan scholars won 16 awards at the Silicon Valley International Invention Festival 2026, retaining the University’s position as the higher education institution in the Hong Kong SAR with the most awards and gold medals.
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