Delegation from Yunnan Province visits PolyU and signs strategic cooperation framework agreement to deepen Yunnan–Hong Kong collaborative development
A delegation from Yunnan Province, led by Mr GUO Dajin, Vice Governor of Yunnan Province, visited The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) on 24 June and engaged in in-depth discussions with University representatives, including Prof. Jin-Guang TENG, PolyU President; Prof. Zijian ZHENG, Vice President (Knowledge Transfer); Prof. Daniel SHEK, Associate Vice President (Undergraduate Programme); Dr Laura LO, Associate Vice President (Institutional Advancement); and Prof. Haitian LU, Director of Mainland Development. PolyU also signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the People’s Government of Yunnan Province to establish a long-term and stable strategic partnership aimed at deepening Yunnan–Hong Kong collaboration, facilitating the translation and application of PolyU’s research outcomes in Yunnan and contributing to the development of the Province.
The Yunnan delegation members included Mr XIA Junsong, Director-General of the Department of Transport of Yunnan Province; Mr MA Zuoxin, Deputy Director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the People’s Government of Yunnan Province; Ms LI Yi, Deputy Director-General of the Department of Commerce of Yunnan Province; and Mr ZHAO Huaijun, Deputy Director-General of the Yunnan Investment Promotion Agency.
Prof. Jin-Guang Teng extended a warm welcome to the delegation and introduced PolyU’s positioning as an innovative world-class university, its mission in education, as well as its achievements in interdisciplinary research, knowledge transfer and industry-academia-research collaboration.
Mr Guo Dajin highly commended PolyU’s innovative research and its successful application in areas such as smart cities. He noted that the resident population of Kunming, Yunnan Province, had exceeded 10 million and expressed his hope of introducing intelligent technologies to enhance the efficiency of urban governance. He also invited the PolyU team to visit Yunnan to pursue further exchanges and cooperation with local universities and research institutions.
Witnessed by Mr Guo Dajin and Prof. Jin-Guang Teng, Mr Ma Zuoxin and Prof. Zijian Zheng signed the strategic cooperation framework agreement on behalf of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the People’s Government of Yunnan Province and PolyU respectively. Leveraging PolyU’s distinctive strengths in higher education, technological innovation, social services and internationalisation, together with Yunnan’s geographical, industrial and resource advantages, the two parties will focus on four major areas of collaboration: strengthening talent cultivation and professional capacity building; promoting industry-academia-research collaboration and the translation of research outcomes; deepening the integration of Service-Learning with rural revitalisation; and expanding Yunnan–Hong Kong youth cultural exchanges and people-to-people connectivity more generally. The two parties will also explore the joint establishment of a “Yunnan–Hong Kong Talent Cultivation Cooperation Base” to facilitate implementation of further PolyU research outcomes in Yunnan in areas aligned with the priority industries of the Province, including biomedicine, modern agriculture and the digital economy.
During the visit, the delegation toured the PolyU Otto Poon Charitable Foundation Smart Cities Research Institute to learn about the University’s innovative smart city solutions and the translation of its frontier technologies into industry applications. Prof. SHI Wenzhong, Director of the Otto Poon Charitable Foundation Smart Cities Research Institute and Chair Professor of Geographic Information Science and Remote Sensing, introduced the Institute’s self-developed smart city assessment system, integrated road inspection technology for above-ground, ground-level and underground environments, and AI-enabled road network safety inspection applications.
The delegation subsequently visited the National Rail Transit Electrification and Automation Engineering Technology Research Centre (Hong Kong Branch) at PolyU. Dr Siqi DING, Research Assistant Professor of the PolyU Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, introduced key research projects that included a railway foreign object intrusion detection system and an active early-warning system for preventing vessel collisions with bridges, and shared the Centre’s latest progress in collaborating with industry.
The visit further strengthened the foundation for connectivity between Yunnan and Hong Kong, helping to enable the efficient alignment of resources and the harnessing of complementary strengths. Looking ahead, both parties will build on their respective advantages and work hand-in-hand to achieve targeted cooperation in key areas such as industry-academia-research integration, talent exchange and rural revitalisation. Through pragmatic initiatives, they will deepen collaboration between the two regions and jointly inject fresh momentum into the high-quality development of Yunnan and Hong Kong.
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