On the last day of a visit to South Korea, Chief Secretary Chan Kwok-ki, leading a delegation of the Working Group on Planning & Construction of the University Town, met a local official and toured the Incheon Global Campus.
The working groups falls under the Committee on Development of the Northern Metropolis.
In the morning, the delegation met Vice Mayor for Political Affairs of Global City of Incheon Metropolitan City Shin Jae-kyung, to learn about the city’s vision and plans for the development a university town.
The delegates also learned about the city’s multipronged strategies to nurture top-tier talent and develop key sectors such as biotechnology, smart city infrastructure and advanced manufacturing.
Mr Chan remarked that Incheon’s vibrant higher education sector, integrating advanced technology and talent cultivation, puts it among the leading cities in Asia.
He added that the city has attracted numerous international institutions to set up overseas branch campuses there.
Mr Chan said Incheon has also closely linked its university town with surrounding business districts and innovation clusters, creating a robust industry-academia-research ecosystem that will provide a point of refence for the planning and construction of Hong Kong’s Northern Metropolis University Town (NMUT).
Afterwards, the delegation visited the Incheon Global Campus (IGC), a university town that incorporates various overseas institutions under an extended campus model, where students can be awarded the same degree certificates as those conferred by the main campuses of their respective international institutions.
The delegation visited the institutions on the campus and met Chief Executive Officer of the Incheon Global Campus Foundation Byun Ju-young.
They exchanged views on attracting overseas universities, fostering industry-academia-research collaboration, planning and developing shared campus facilities and nurturing talent in a multicultural context.
Mr Chan commented that the IGC’s operating model is innovative and inspiring, adding that the city’s success in bringing together various overseas universities and promoting deep collaboration between academia and industry offers many valuable lessons for Hong Kong.
The NMUT’s development can draw on these lessons to meet the needs of the times and contribute more to the development of higher education in Asia and the world, he added.
Mr Chan also highlighted that there is great potential for collaboration between Hong Kong’s universities and their counterparts at the IGC in areas such as student exchanges and collaborative research, and that he looked forward to seeing strengthened co-operation between the two places.
Mr Chan, Secretary for Education Choi Yuk-lin and other members of the delegation returned to Hong Kong this afternoon.
