Chinese New Year Greetings from Dean of Faculty

Dear Colleagues, Students, and Friends of FCE

I wish you a prosperous and blissful Chinese New Year! May the Year of the Rabbit bring you good health and good luck!

Hard work and dedication in the past year have yielded success, the start of 2023 has brought us quite some encouraging news about our academic members’ research endeavours. We have also launched some new initiatives to bring the FCE community closer together. I am delighted to share our good news and happiness with you at this time of reunion.

Xiang-dong LI

Dean of Faculty of Construction and Environment

RGC Collaborative Research Fund 2022/23

The funding results of the RGC Collaborative Research Fund (CRF) 2022/23 Exercise were announced on 5 January 2023, FCE academics have again attained remarkable results in this year’s exercise. Among PolyU’s seven funded projects, four come from FCE. The FCE projects were awarded more than HK$26 million in total, accounting for around 60% of PolyU’s total awarded funding.

The CRF supports multi-investigator, multi-disciplinary projects to encourage more research groups to engage in creative and high-quality cross-disciplinary/cross-institutional projects. There are three types of grants under CRF:

• Collaborative Research Project Grant (CRPG) aims to enhance the research output of universities in terms of the level of attainment, quantity, dimensions and impact;

• Collaborative Research Equipment Grant (CREG) enables the acquisition of major research facilities or equipment;

• CRF Young Collaborative Research Grant (YCRG) aims to support early-stage academic staff members in gaining first-hand experience in leading and managing collaborative research.

FCE academic-led project on circular economy in construction receives highest fund in RGC Research Impact Fund 2022/23

Dr Tak Ming CHAN of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) has received HK$9.75 million funding support from RGC Research Impact Fund (RIF) 2022/23 for his project “Achieving the Circular Economy in Construction through Deconstruction and Reuse Technologies for Steel and Composite Structures”, the highest funded amount in this round of exercise. The 5-year project aims to develop the fundamental basis for “Circular Economy in Construction” through Design for Deconstruction and Reuse (DfDR) technologies. The outcome will present Hong Kong as a leading innovator in the field of construction and paves the path for future projects like Northern Metropolis Development, the development of artificial islands in Central Waters and the development of the Greater Bay Area.

The RIF aims to encourage local academics to consider and articulate the potential of research to deliver benefits to the wider community, to encourage more impactful and translational research projects, and to encourage a greater volume of collaborative research beyond academia. PolyU has a total of five awarded projects in the 2022/23 round of the RIF exercise.

Green Tech Fund in support of project on waste glass transformation into construction products

FCE is thrilled to learn that our academic has won another funding support from the Green Tech Fund (GTF). Following Prof. Shuncheng LEE’s awarded project in the area of green transport, Prof. C.S. POON, Head of Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), has won GTF support of HK$5.29 million for his project “Low-carbon transformation of construction materials using waste glass”.

Glass waste is an important component among the solid wastes in Hong Kong, but its recovery rate has been consistently lower than 20% in the past, about 200 tonnes of waste glass are disposed of at landfills every day. The 3-year project led by Prof. Poon aims to transform glass waste into low-carbon construction materials including ultra high-performance concrete, durable self-levelling cement mortar and high-strength pervious concrete. It is anticipated that the successful completion of this project can provide a total solution to the waste glass problem in Hong Kong, hence facilitating Hong Kong's Climate Action Plan 2050 to achieve carbon neutrality.

The GTF was established in 2020 to provide better and more focused funding support to research and development projects which can help Hong Kong decarbonise and enhance environmental protection.

Public Policy Research Funding

Three of FCE’s young researchers have been awarded Public Policy Research (PPR) Funding 2022-23 (Third Round) Exercise. Their projects seek to provide solutions for challenges in the areas of land and housing, and environmental protection that the city is facing.

 
The PPR Funding Scheme, managed by the Policy Innovation and Co-ordination Office (PICO) of the HKSAR, aims to promote public policy research and evidence-based research to facilitate public policy discussion.

BRE students shine at innovation and entrepreneurship competition

Two teams of students from the Department of Building and Real Estate (BRE) garnered a gold award and a bronze award at the Qianhai - Guangdong - Hong Kong - Macao - Taiwan Youth Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition 2022.

Both teams were guided by Prof. Meng NI, Associate Dean (Research) of Faculty and Professor of BRE, and were determined to solve the long-term storage problem of new energy. The zinc-air flow battery in particular is a safer and less costly alternative that has a larger discharge capacity when compared to lithium-ion batteries. The high recovery rate of zinc (as high as 80%), which is the main metal material of the batteries, makes it a great product in terms of both commercial prospects and potential contribution to sustainable development.

The Qianhai - Guangdong - Hong Kong - Macao - Taiwan Youth Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition is held annually since 2016. The 2022 competition was one of the recognised activities to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong SAR.

PolyU Info Day for Taught Postgraduate Programmes

FCE offers a wide spectrum of taught postgraduate programmes taught by top-notch academics for those who would like to continue their studies in construction and environment-related fields.

The annual PolyU Info Day for Taught Postgraduate Programmes was successfully held online on 7 January 2023. Targeting prospective students for admission in 2023/24 or thereafter, 14 sessions of programme info seminars were conducted by the four departments of FCE, attracting over 200 online participants in total.

For those who wish to revisit the info seminars, please bookmark https://www.polyu.edu.hk/tpginfoday/ for the event playback. Details of the programmes offered by FCE are available at https://www.polyu.edu.hk/fce/study/taught-postgraduate-programmes/.

FCE is now on Instagram

FCE has launched its official Instagram account. More news and updates will be shared with you via the new channel. Follow us @polyufce (https://www.instagram.com/polyufce/) so you’ll never miss an update. Stay connected!

Conferment of Emeritus Professorship on Prof. William Lam

Prof. William LAM, Chair Professor of Civil and Transportation Engineering of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), has been conferred the title of Emeritus Professor (Civil and Transportation Engineering) by the University with effect from 6 January 2023. Prof. Lam joined PolyU in 1983 and was promoted to Chair Professor in 2003. He was appointed the Associate Head of the then Department of Civil and Structural Engineering (CSE) in 2007 and served as the Head of CEE from July 2013 to June 2019. Prof. Lam has been re-appointed as an RGC Engineering Panel member from 1 November 2022 to 31 October 2024.

The conferment of Emeritus Professorship on Prof. Lam upon his retirement in early January 2023 is a recognition of his outstanding and sustained contributions to the academic, research and other aspects of the University's activities and his international academic leadership.

Welcome new staff to FCE

The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) welcomed Dr Kaiming BI to the post of Associate Professor in January 2023. Dr Bi obtained his PhD in Structural Engineering from The University of Western Australia, Australia. Before joining PolyU, he was an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow and Associate Professor in the Centre for Infrastructural Monitoring and Protection at Curtin University, Australia. Dr Bi's research interests mainly include Structural Vibration Control, Structural Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering.

The Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering (BEEE) welcomed Dr Anthony Chun Yin YUEN to the post of Assistant Professor, Presidential Young Scholar Scheme in January 2023. Dr Yuen obtained his PhD in 2015 from the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia. Before joining PolyU, he was a lecturer at the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering. He was also the former Centre Manager of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Training Centre for Fire Retardant Materials and Safety Technologies. Dr Yuen’s research interests include Computational Fluid Dynamics, Composite Materials, Fire Modelling, Machine Learning, Material Characterisation, Molecular Dynamics, Nanomaterials, and Biomaterials.

FCE Staff Corner

The FCE Staff Corner is a new initiative launched by the Faculty in 2023 to provide a casual and friendly platform for academic members to mingle, network, and connect with fellow academics from different departments. The four departments will host the monthly staff corner on a rotational basis. The first edition of FCE Staff Corner was held on 13 January 2023 by the Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering (BEEE). About 30 FCE academic members attended the event, including Prof. Xiang-dong LI, Dean of Faculty, Prof. Linda XIAO, Associate Dean (Partnership) of Faculty, Prof. Asif USMANI, Head of BEEE. The next edition will be hosted by the Department of Building and Real Estate (BRE) in February 2023.