Puja Kapai Awarded Faculty Knowledge Exchange Award 2017

Congratulations to Puja Kapai who was awarded the University of Hong Kong's Faculty Knowledge Exchange (KE) Award 2017.  The award recognises the impact her research has had on the interests and rights of ethnic minorities in Hong Kong.  Titling her application "Plugging the Justice Gap for Minorities under the Law: Applied Intersectionality Research and Substantive Equality" ("以法律為弱勢消除公義鴻溝：應用跨界別研究及實質平等"), the impact from her work was summarised as follows:

• Legislative Council referenced Kapai’s research findings and called on HKSAR Government to follow up Kapai’s recommendations based on her submissions.
• Kapai’s applied intersectionality framework has become part of standards of best practice for HKSAR Government and NGOs in handling ethnic minority issues.
• Raising community/public understanding about ethnic minorities (EMs) and issues impacting them and to foster enriched understanding about detrimental impact of inequality for Hong Kong’s diversity and future.
• Review and reassessment of existing laws, policies, capacity building and service delivery towards EMs across many areas, including violence against women, education, employment and healthcare.
• Propelled NGOs to conduct research to collect data to work towards evidence-based resource allocation & solutions.

The Faculty KE Awards were introduced in 2011 in order to recognise each Faculty’s outstanding KE accomplishment that has made demonstrable economic, social or cultural impacts to benefit the community, business/industry, or partner organisations. Nominations in each Faculty were considered by an Ad Hoc Faculty KE Award Selection Committee chaired by the Dean, and members included the Faculty representative serving on the KE Working Group, one of the Associate Directors of the Knowledge Exchange Office (KEO), and a member from outside the University. The selection criteria include evidence of the KE project’s link with excellence in research or in teaching & learning of HKU; evidence of an effective engagement process with the non-academic sector(s); and evidence of demonstrable benefits to the community, business/industry, or partner organisations.