News

Awardee of RGC Senior Research Fellow in 2020/21 Exercise

Government funding has been reserved for the RGC's RFS and SRFS on a regular yearly basis to provide sustained support to exceptionally outstanding academics in UGC-funded universities to facilitate their research efforts and promote research excellence. Professor Raymond WONG Wai-yeung, Chair Professor of Chemical Technology (ABCT) and Division Group Leader of RISUD, PolyU has received an award of RGC Senior Research Fellow in 2020/21 Exercise after a rigorous assessment process.

Distinguished Research Publication

Prof. Meng NI and his collaborator, Prof. Zongping SHAO from Nanjing Tech University, published an article titled Fuel cells that operate at 300° to 500°C” in Science, one of the world's top academic journals published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), in which RISUD is listed as the first author’s affiliation. Prof. NI thanks the matching fund provided by RISUD for the large equipment fund, which enables the establishment of the lab for fuel cell research.

Endowed Professorship

Prof. Xiangdong Li, Director of PolyU’s Research Institute of Sustainable Urban Development (RISUD) has been appointed as Ko Jan Ming Professor in Sustainable Urban Development for a period of 5 years from 1 March 2020 to 28 February 2025. Prof. Li’s major research interests include regional pollution, urban environmental studies, and remediation of contaminated sites. He has published more than 200 papers in leading international journals, and is an author of 15 highly cited papers (top 1%) in Environment/Ecology in the Web of Science database. He was awarded an Outstanding Young Researcher (Overseas) Fund from the Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) in 2007. A past president (2011-2013) of the International Society of Environmental Geochemistry and Health, he is currently an associate editor for Environmental Science and Technology, a journal published by the American Chemical Society, and serves on the editorial board for several other international journals in related fields.

2019 Higher Education Excellent Research Results Award

Prof. Hong-Xing Yang, Division Coordinator of RISUD, PolyU has received a 2019 Higher Education Excellent Research Results Award (second-class) in the category of science and technology from the Chinese Ministry of Education. His work was on radiation heat transfer based on key energy efficient and thermal comfort technologies and applications. Members of the research team come from PolyU, Hunan University, and industry and they have worked together on the winning project since 2013.

1st Prize of the CIC Construction Innovation Award 2019 by Construction Health and Safety Research Group of RISUD

A licensed technology of an early heat-stress warning system that was developed by the Construction Health and Safety Research Group, Division of Urban Infrastructure of Research Institute for Sustainable Urban Development (RISUD), PolyU and incorporated into SmartWorks, an end-to-end solution provided by Smartone Mobile Communications Ltd. to promote and manage worksite safety, has won the 1st Prize of the CIC Construction Innovation Award 2019 in the category of Construction Safety. Led by Prof. Albert Chan, Associate Director of RISUD and the Group Leader of Construction Health and Safety Research Group, his research group pioneered the early-warning system to monitor the heat strain levels of workers when they are performing their tasks in hot weather. An indispensable component of SmartWorks is the Heat Stress Artificial Intelligence Engine, which integrates technologies with 5 key smart services, namely, Smart Helmet, Smart Health Station, Environment Station, Dump Truck Management and Danger Alert & Access Control. It is a prime example of what can result from a close collaboration between academe and industry. The Construction Innovation Award was organized by the Construction Industry Council (CIC) on a biennial basis since 2015, with the aim to spearhead the development, promotion and implementation of new construction materials, methods, technologies for enhancing the competitiveness of the construction industry. The same research group won the Local Grand Prize of the Inaugural Construction Innovation Award in 2015 for their innovative development of anti-heat stress uniforms, which have been adopted as a standard work wear for construction workers in all government funded projects since 2017.

The opening of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Joint Laboratory of Environmental Pollution Processes and Control in 2019

The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Joint Laboratory of Environmental Pollution Processes and Control which is one of the first ten joint laboratories in the Greater Bay Area (GBA),had its grand opening on 19 December 2019 in Guangzhou. The joint laboratory was a venture led by the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry (GIG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in collaboration with The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the Guangdong Institute of Eco-environmental Science and Technology, with Prof. Ping’an PENG (Professor of GIG and CAS Academician) and Prof. Xiangdong LI (Chair Professor of CEE at PolyU and Associate Dean of FCE and Director of RISUD at PolyU) as the co-directors. The establishment of the joint laboratory indicates the further integration of research teams and resources in the GBA, and encourages the large-scale collaborative research to address urgent environmental issues in the region, such as air quality and human health, ecological risks of emerging contaminants in estuarine and coastal environments, environmental quality in city clusters, control and remediation of soil mixed contamination, and disposal of municipal waste and sewage treatment in rural areas.

Associate Director of RISUD Appointed the Able Professor in Construction Health and Safety

Prof. Albert Chan, Head of the Department of Building and Real Estate (BRE), Associate Director of the Research Institute for Sustainable Urban Development (RISUD), and Chair Professor of Construction Engineering and Management, has been appointed the Able Professor in Construction Health and Safety with effect from 1 August 2019 under the University’s Endowed Professorship Scheme, which honours distinguished scholars for their outstanding academic and research achievements. This endowment will unprecedentedly scale Prof. Chan’s efforts and perseverance. Also, it certainly will further realise his belief of raising the bar for the wellbeing and productivity of construction workers. Over the past three decades, Prof. Chan’s research has been focusing on a broad spectrum of topics across the field of construction engineering and management. The continuing progress he made was internationally applauded with a series of awards and prizes over years. His current research interests focus on exploring how extreme hot and humid weather affects the health and productivity of construction workers and developing innovative devices to help improve their well-being.

RGC Theme-based Research Scheme 2019/20: “SureFire: Smart Urban Resilience and Firefighting”

Prof. Asif Sohail Usmani, Head of the Department of Building Services Engineering (BSE) and Division Coordinator of RISUD, has recently been granted funding of HK$33.333 million from the RGC Theme-based Research Scheme for his project entitled “SureFire: Smart Urban Resilience and Firefighting” . The key scientific challenges of smart firefighting and emergency response will be addressed to possibly make SureFire-based critical event forecasting and urban infrastructure more resilient to the fire hazards.The project is expected to last for 5 years from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2024. The project team includes Prof. Heng Li of the Department of Building and Real Estate (BRE), Dr Qixin Wang of the Department of Computing, Dr Fu Xiao and Dr Xinyan Huang of BSE, Prof. John Shi of the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics (LSGI), Prof. George Huang of the University of Hong Kong, Prof. Xinzheng Lu of Tsinghua University, Prof. Jose Torero of the University College London, and Dr Stephen Welch of the University of Edinburgh.

Seminar on Toxic Air Emissions from Indoor and Outdoor Combustion Sources,

co-organized by RISUD & Hong Kong Waste Management Association   Date: 28 May 2019 (Tuesday) Time: 5:00p.m. - 7:00p.m. Venue: Z205, Block Z, PolyU

6th Cross-Strait Forum on Sustainable Urban Development

The 6th Cross-Strait Forum on Sustainable Urban Development was held at Tongji University in Shanghai from 16th - 18th May 2019. The Forum was jointly organized by RISUD and Tongji University, drawing over 263 participants on Day 1 of the event, and 253 on Day 2. Representatives from RISUD’s partner institutions (National Taiwan University, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Sichuan University, Tongji University and Tsinghua University) were in attendance alongside scholars from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). The forum started by the opening speeches delivered by Prof. Xiang-dong Li (Director, RISUD) & Prof. Xianglin GU (Vice President, Tongji University) on Day 1. Nineteen presentations were delivered by distinguished research leaders in areas with close relations to sustainable urban development. The presentations were categorized into the following areas: Future City Improvements, Ecosystem Management, Design Improvements and Intelligent Construction. On Day 2, a further twenty-one presentations were delivered, categorizing into the four main themes as Day 1. The presentations were accomplished with much discussion among participants, and provided considerable information regarding future research into said areas. The successful event was closed out with a concluding speech from Prof. Xiao Jian ZHUANG, Head of Department for Architectural Engineering of Tongji University.