The School may also help bring students into our clinical sciences education programmes. I expect some of the graduates of the Bachelor of Engineering in Biomedical Engineering (BEng[BME]) degree – whose total intake has more than doubled this year to 108 – will want to articulate to the new Graduate Entry Track of the MBBS. It is worth noting that this cohort is wonderfully diverse, and the admission scores are markedly higher than before. The connections across faculties will only get deeper. We are now in the process of identifying a founding director for the School. Building on this momentum, we will continue to diversify who we teach. In the coming years, the Faculty will proactively admit more students from outside the city into our health sciences education programmes, widening the range of perspectives and experiences in our classrooms and labs. This aligns with the Chief Executive’s 2025 Policy Address to solidify our city’s position as a soughtafter destination for study and research. I am confident this move will not only deepen our talent resources, but also enrich the overall academic environment. Diversifying our programmes and attracting new talent will help to elevate the Faculty, but we will not stop there. When we look at other top universities – many of them much bigger than HKUMed – one clear advantage stands out: they reach beyond their home city or town. They build a real presence across their countries and around the world. A big part of that is sending their people – staff and students – out into the world. HKUMed has been doing this for years. But this year, we took a bold step forward. We brought together many generous donations to create a new overarching fund for external engagement. What will this fund do? It will help our staff work side by side with leading international partners in areas like cancer, AI, inflammation and immunology, neuroscience, regenerative medicine and more. It will also open doors for our students, with scholarships for postgraduate study at partner institutions such as University of Cambridge, King’s College London, as well as Tsinghua University – where we strengthened ties this year through new MoUs with the Vanke School of Public Health and Tsinghua Medicine. Further down the horizon, we hope we can create a bigger physical footprint outside Pokfulam. This will take time. But meanwhile, our people can continue to bring the excellence of the Faculty’s work to the wider world. 7 THE DEAN’S LETTER
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy Mzg4NDg0