Three PAIR members honoured as RGC Senior Research Fellows and Research Fellows, spearheading innovations in advanced manufacturing, neuroscience and IoT | PolyU Academy for Interdisciplinary Research (PAIR)

In the Research Grants Council’s (RGC) Senior Research Fellow Scheme (SRFS) and Research Fellow Scheme (RFS) 2026/27, four distinguished PolyU scholars, including three researchers from PAIR, have been awarded fellowships. The Schemes offer support for the awardees’ continued innovations and breakthroughs in diverse frontier fields, spanning advanced semiconductor manufacturing, cognitive neuroscience and Internet of Things (IoT) applications.

The RGC SRFS and RFS schemes aim to provide sustained research support for outstanding full Professors and Associate Professors with relief from teaching and administrative duties, so enabling them to more fully focus on R&D and nurture the next generation of research talent for Hong Kong.

The successful projects showcase the University’s exceptional strength in bridging theoretical breakthroughs with real-life applications, underscoring the world-class calibre of PolyU research and the University’s commitment to translating frontier knowledge into impactful solutions that address pressing global challenges. The PAIR awardees are as follows:

RGC SRFS 2026/27
Awardee	Project Title
Prof. Benny CHEUNG Chi-fai Associate Director of Research Centre for SHARP Vision (RCSV) Management Committee Member of Research Centre for Resources Engineering towards Carbon Neutrality (RCRE) Member of Research Institute for Advanced Manufacturing (RIAM) Chair Professor of Ultra-precision Machining and Metrology of the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering Director of the State Key Laboratory of Ultra-precision Machining Technology	A multi-mode ultra-through-focus light-field-spectrometry microscopy (MULFSM) for in-situ measurement of nanostructured surfaces in semiconductor manufacturing
RGC RFS 2026/27
Awardee	Project Title
Prof. Bolton CHAU Associate Director of Mental Health Research Centre Associate Professor of the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences	How distractors bias choices: Investigating mechanisms through computational modelling, neuroimaging, neurochemistry and neurostimulation
Prof. ZHENG Yuanqing Member of Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence of Things (RIAIoT) and RCRE Professor of the Department of Computing	Software-defined edge radio access networks: System architecture and applications