Showing posts with label RGC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RGC. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 28, 2026

RGC Awards $5 Million in Research Funding to HKU Law 2026/27

Congratulations to our eight colleagues who were successful in the 2026-2027 round of research grant funding by Hong Kong's Research Grants Council (RGC). Seven General Research Fund (GRF) projects were funded to evaluate the Infrastructure Consultation in the Asia Pacific; to explore Human-AI Interaction in Legal Processes; to regulate Donation-Based Crowdfunding Platforms in China; to assess how can AI help Debt Mediation; to analyse Damage in Hong Kong's Law of Negligence; to examine the role of corporate law in advancing ESG in China; to evaluate the structured issues of FILs and identifying ways to minimize FILs’ impact on citizens’ rights. One Early Career Scheme (ECS) project was funded to evaluate the Necessity and Feasibility of a Sentencing Council in Hong Kong. The details of the new funded projects are as follows:

GRF:
Professor Shahla Ali
Infrastructure Consultation in the Asia Pacific, HK$827,180

Professor Benjamin Chen
Artificially Enhanced Justice: An Exploration of Human-AI Interaction in Legal Processes, HK$777,600

Professor Hui Jing
Regulating Donation-Based Crowdfunding Platforms in China: Challenges and Future Directions, HK$633,900

Professor John Liu
Can Artificial Intelligence Help Debt Mediation? A Field Experiment, HK$650,000

Professor Craig Purshouse
Damage in Hong Kong's Law of Negligence, HK$147,500

Professor James Zeng
Corporate Law and ESG in China, HK$816,000

Dr. Han Zhu
Rule of Law or Rule of Values? A Critical Comparative Analysis of Foreign Influence Laws, HK$549,240

ECS:
Professor Florence Lee
Evaluating the Necessity and Feasibility of a Sentencing Council in Hong Kong: Lessons from Comparative Perspectives, HK$599,984

Tuesday, September 30, 2025

RGC funded Collaborative Research Project on Mitigating Legal and Climate Risk in Asia Pacific Infrastructure Development

Congratulations to the research team awarded a RGC Collaborative Research Fund (CRF) Grant of $2 million for the project "Mitigating Legal and Climate Risk in Asia Pacific Infrastructure Development".  The project began in June 2025 for a duration of 36 months. It aims to develop a framework for assessing the sources of legal risk associated with infrastructure investment projects resulting in legal disputes. 

It is led by Prof. Shahla Ali of University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law and includes Co-Principal Investigators from HKU Law (Prof. Ying Zhu), HKU Social Sciences (Prof. David Palmer and Prof. Hui Li), and PolyU Construction and Environment (Prof. Tarek Zayed), and collaborator from HKU Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (Ms. ZiWei Fan).  This is another good example of an interdisciplinary collaborative research project. There are few law-related projects supported by the CRF fund, so well done to the team and hopefully we will see more CRF collaborations with legal academics in Hong Kong.

Wednesday, July 16, 2025

RGC Awards $3.5 Million in Research Funding to HKU Law 2025/26

Congratulations to our five colleagues who were successful in the 2025-2026 round of research grant funding by Hong Kong's Research Grants Council (RGC). The three General Research Fund (GRF) projects that were funded cover a range of topics, from examining the impact of “revolving-door” judges in the Chinese judicial system to investigating China’s efforts to reshape public interest lawyering to exploring the relationship between China’s legal system, financial markets, and economic development. Two Early Career Scheme (ECS) project were funded to study the Integration of China's Patent System and Social Credit System, and introduction of statutory recognition of same-sex couples in Hong Kong. The details of the new funded projects are as follows:

GRF:
Professor John Liu
The Revolving Door in the Chinese Judiciary and Its Economic Consequences: A Quantitative Study, HK$1,064,000

Professor Ying Xia
Nationalizing Legal Mobilization: The Transformation of Public Interest Lawyering under Xi Jinping, HK$679,000

Professor James Zeng
China's Path of Law and Finance, HK$746,000

ECS:
Professor Taorui Guan
Big Data-Driven Governance: A Study on the Integration of China's Patent System and Social Credit System, HK$630,925

Professor Stefano Osella
Recognising Same-sex Partnerships in Hong Kong: Constitutional and Human Rights Perspectives, HK$406,816

Wednesday, July 3, 2024

Sunday, October 8, 2023

RGC Awards $4.8 Million in Research Funding to HKU Law 2023/24

Congratulations to our eight colleagues who were successful in the 2023-2024 round of research grant funding by Hong Kong's Research Grants Council (RGC). Six General Research Fund (GRF) projects were funded to study the abuse of dominance in the digital age; to examine the reformation of administrative law for the coming age of algorithmic government in Hong Kong; to evaluate the process of transnational law-making and its boundaries in trust and succession planning in Hong Kong and Singapore; to conduct field experiments of using cameras in Chinese trials; to study the implications for enhanced intellectual property protection in China through the Chinese music streaming market; to explore possible changes and impacts on the Hong Kong tax system after the social unrest, COVID-19 and PRC factor. Two Early Career Scheme (ECS) project were funded to study political crowdfunding in authoritarian regimes and to conduct a comparative study (Hong Kong, Australia, and England) of trustees’ discretionary powers in express private trusts and their possible control. The details of the new funded projects are as follows:

GRF:








Tuesday, November 22, 2022

Douglas Arner on Digital Finance, Financial Inclusion and Sustainability: Building Better Financial Systems (RGC SFS)

Digital finance has accelerated its influence on financial systems in the wake of crises including the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical conflicts, climate change and market volatilities across the globe.
      Awardee of the 2020/21 Research Grants Council (RGC) Senior Research Fellow Scheme, Douglas Arner (Kerry Holdings Professor in Law at The University of Hong Kong) leads his team in the exploration on digitisation and its effects on finance and regulation through new technologies.
     In collaboration with the Alliance for Financial Inclusion and alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Group, the Senior Research Fellow Scheme project strategises to enable FinTech and RegTech solutions to build relationships between digital payments and financial inclusion. Watch this video to learn more about the project’s initiatives.

Wednesday, July 7, 2021

RGC Awards $5.96 Million in Research Funding to HKU Law 2021/22


Congratulations to our 9 colleagues who were successful in the 2021-2022 round of research grant funding by Hong Kong's Research Grants Council (RGC). Eight General Research Fund (GRF) projects were funded to study the development of investor dispute prevention mechanisms in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative, the concept of “best interests” for the purpose of decision-making on behalf of individuals lacking mental capacity in Chinese jurisdictions, the role of peace movements in the 1899 creation of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the proliferation of International Commercial Courts across the globe, modern legal education reforms undertaken by three East Asian countries—Japan, Korea and China—meant to improve their legal professions by emphasizing postgraduate legal education, neighborhood governance in urban China, the emerging phenomenon of self-governance in the digital economy in China, and a medieval legal bestseller, the 'Statuta Vetera' Manuscript, c. 1280-1520.  An Early Career Scheme (ECS) project was funded to study the receptivity of socialist legal systems to the common law notion of precedent. 
    The details of the new funded projects are as follows:

GRF:







Dr Anya Adair (cross appointed with Faculty of Arts)

ECS:

Thursday, January 21, 2021

Kerry Holdings Professor in Law Douglas Arner Awarded Inaugural RGC Senior Research Fellowship

 

Kerry Holdings Professor in Law Douglas Arner Awarded Inaugural RGC Senior Research Fellowship
Seven academics across different academic backgrounds from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) were awarded under the inaugural Research Fellow Scheme (RFS) and Senior Research Fellow Scheme (SRFS) of the Research Grants Council (RGC), for their distinguished research achievements and significant contributions to the higher education sector. Among them, four were conferred as Senior Research Fellows and three were conferred as Research Fellows, in an award presentation ceremony held by RGC in November 2020.
    The schemes aim to provide sustained support and relief from teaching and administrative duties to exceptionally outstanding researchers at Associate Professor or full Professor ranks at University Grants Committee (UGC)-funded universities in Hong Kong. Ten places across all academic disciplines are awarded under each scheme.

The seven HKU recipients are:
RGC Senior Research Fellow Scheme
Professor Douglas Wayne ARNER
Kerry Holdings Professor in Law and Director, Asian Institute of International Financial Law, Faculty of Law
Professor Giulio CHIRIBELLA
Professor and Director, QICI Quantum Information and Computation Initiative, Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Engineering
Professor Benjamin John COWLING
Professor, School of Public Health, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine
Professor Chuyang TANG
Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering
RGC Research Fellow Scheme
Professor David Alexander PALMER
Professor, Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences / Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences
Dr. Shelley Xiuli TONG
Associate Professor, Academic Unit of Human Communication, Development, and Information Sciences, Faculty of Education
Professor Kevin Kin Man TSIA
Professor, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering

Biographies of the awardee:

RGC Senior Research Fellow Scheme
Professor Douglas Wayne ARNER, Kerry Holdings Professor in Law and Director, Asian Institute of International Financial Law, Faculty of Law
Project title: Digital Finance, Financial Inclusion and Sustainability: Building Better Financial Systems
Professor Arner is the Kerry Holdings Professor in Law and Director and co-founder of the Asian Institute of International Financial Law at the University of Hong Kong. Professor Arner has published 18 books and more than 200 articles, chapters and reports on international financial law and regulation, including recently Reconceptualising Global Finance and its Regulation (Cambridge 2016) and The RegTech Book (Wiley 2019). He is one of the top 1% of all authors on SSRN, where his work has been downloaded more than 100,000 times. From 2012-2018, Professor Arner coordinated an RGC Theme-based Research Scheme project on Hong Kong's role and future as an international financial centre. He leads Introduction to FinTech – launched with edX in May 2018 and now with over 80,000 learners spanning every country in the world. Professor Arner has advised on financial sector development projects around the world, as an advisor to, among others, the UN, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, APEC, Alliance for Financial Inclusion, and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He has lectured and co-organised conferences and events across Asia-Pacific, Europe, North America and Africa, and has been a visiting professor at Duke, Harvard, McGill, Melbourne, NUS, UNSW, and Zurich, among others.

Monday, January 18, 2021

RGC funded Collaborative Research Project on Insolvency Law Implications of Covid-19 in Hong Kong

Congratulations to the research team recently awarded a RGC Collaborative Research Fund (CRF) Grant of $3.11 million for the project "Hong Kong Insolvency and Restructuring Law and Policy in Times of COVID-19 and Beyond".  The project collects data on the impact of the pandemic on businesses in Hong Kong and considers whether reforms to Hong Kong's laws of insolvency and business restructuring are needed.  It is led by Professor Wai Yee Wan of City University of Hong Kong School of Law and includes Co-Principal Investigators from HKU Law (Mr Alwin Chan and Mr Kelvin Kwok) and City University of Hong Kong, and other collaborators from Oxford University and Leeds University.  This is yet another good example of a collaborative research project between HKU Law and CityU Law.  There are very few law-related projects supported by the CRF fund, so well done to the team and hopefully we will see more CRF collaborations between legal academics in Hong Kong.

Friday, October 2, 2020

HKU Law Begins 2020/21 with $12 Million in New Competitive Research Funding

Congratulations to our 8 colleagues who were successful in their research funding applications this year in competitive exercises conducted by external funding bodies.

RGC Senior Research Fellowship 2020/21
Professor Douglas Arner was awarded an inaugural RGC Senior Research Fellowship by the Research Grants Council.  This fellowship in the amount of $7,798,380 enables Professor Arner to deepen his research on "Digital Finance, Financial Inclusion and Sustainability: Building Better Financial Systems" over the next five years.  This fellowship builds on the RGC Research Impact Fund award Professor Arner obtained in the 2018/19 exercise.

Public Policy Research Funding Scheme 2020/21
Ms Amanda Whitfort was awarded a Public Policy Research (PPR) grant from the Policy Innovation and Co-ordination Office in the amount of $462,019.  She will conduct "An Empirical Study of the Nature of Animal Abuse Cases in Hong Kong from 2013-2019" over the next 12 months.  Ms Whitfort's 2008 PPR project, "Review of animal welfare legislation in Hong Kong", produced an influential policy report that improved the welfare of pets and animals in Hong Kong by triggering impactful legislative and policy reforms.

RGC General Research Fund 2020/21
Six colleagues were awarded General Research Fund (GRF) grants by the Research Grants Council in the 2020/21 round. The GRF success rate was 40%, compared to last year's 31%. The projects cover a range of legal topics of importance to Hong Kong, China and beyond. The details of the new funded projects are as follows:
Dr Clement Chen, Accountability in Algorithm-assisted Sanctions: Public Law Scrutiny of China’s Social Credit System, $705,920

Prof Frank He Xin, The Personal Safety Protection Order against Domestic Violence in China, $924,000

Prof Lusina Ho, A Comprehensive Examination of Judicial Practice on the Chinese Trust Law, $650,064

Ms Rebecca Lee, Rebuilding Trust and Legitimacy for Charities in Hong Kong, $375,000

Dr Michael Ng, Liberating Hong Kong: The awakening of freedom of expression and the rule of law in British Hong Kong (1978-1997), $591,400

Dr Marco Wan, The Construction of Sexual Minority Identities in Legal and Political Discourse in Hong Kong, $585,080

Monday, July 13, 2020

Interview with HKU Law Recipients of RGC Prestigious Fellowship in Humanities and Social Sciences

In 2019, two senior scholars of HKU's Faculty of Law were awarded the RGC Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship (HSSPF). Professor Johannes Chan was awarded HK$508,949 to study constitutional review and judicial independence under one country, two systems, asking whether the two systems are converging or diverging. Professor Frank He was awarded HK$494,000 to further his research on gendered divorce litigation in China. HKU Legal Scholarship Blog's Ivy Lai caught with both scholars to find out how they are progressing with their projects.


Friday, August 9, 2019

RGC Awards $4.6 Million in Research Funding to HKU Law 2019/20

Congratulations to our 8 colleagues who were successful in the 2019-2020 round of research grant funding by Hong Kong's Research Grants Council (RGC).  For the first time, two colleagues (Johannes Chan and Frank He) were successful in obtaining the Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship (HSSPF), which provides recipients with the time and funding to pursue research in place of teaching and administrative duties over the course of 12 months.  Five General Research Fund (GRF) projects were funded to study money laundering offending in Hong Kong, law reform implications of disruptive technologies for finance, enforcement of the arbitral awards under the Belt and Road Initiative, elites and judicial power in the age of populism, and the establishment of British admiralty law in Hong Kong 1861 to 1943.  An Early Career Scheme (ECS) project was funded to study political community and the legal status of established states.  The details of the new funded projects are as follows:

HSSPF
GRF
ECS

Friday, July 13, 2018

RGC Awards $6 Million in Research Grant Funding to HKU Faculty of Law

Congratulations to our 11 colleagues who were successful in the 2018-2019 round of research grant funding by Hong Kong's Research Grants Council (RGC).  The success rate for General Research Fund (GRF) projects was 73%, a little better than last year.  The projects cover a range of legal topics of importance to Hong Kong, China and beyond.  This year the largest grant was awarded to Dr Richard Wu for his ongoing and expansive study of law student values.  This is the fifth RGC grant Dr Wu has received in support of his comparative study of law students in 14 jurisdictions.  The details of the new 11 GRF projects are as follows:

Monday, July 3, 2017

RGC Awards $8.5 Million in Research Grant Funding to HKU Faculty of Law

The Faculty of Law has performed exceptionally well in the 2017-2018 round of research grants awarded by the Research Grants Council (RGC).  The RGC awarded more than HK$8.46 million in funding to 10 General Research Fund (GRF) projects and 3 Early Career Scheme (ECS) projects. This is more than double the amount awarded for the 2016-2017 year.  The success rate for this year was 71% (GRF) and 100% (ECS) respectively.  The projects tackle important issues in constitutional law, trust law, human rights law, legal education, legal history and theory, and land law.  Some are inter-disciplinary.  The largest grant of more than $1 million went to Professor Hualing Fu for his project on police power in transition societies including China.  Congratulations to the following 13 colleagues:
  • Po Jen Yap, Courts and Democracies in Asia, $736,600, GRF, 36 months
  • Hualing Fu, Police Power in Transition Societies: China in Comparative Perspectives, $1,058,488, GRF, 36 months
  • Rebecca Lee (Co-I: Lusina Ho), The Modern International Trust Under Siege: Legislature, Judiciary, and Theoretical Implications, $361,675, GRF, 24 months
  • David Law, The Language and Ideology of Constitutions: A Computational Linguistics Analysis, $784,538, GRF, 36 months
  • Lusina Ho (Co-I: Rebecca Lee), Developing Compensatory Remedies for Breaches of Trust and Fiduciary Duties, $512,198, GRF, 24 months
  • Eric Ip, The Constitutional Foundations of Free Markets: Economic Provisions of the Hong Kong Basic Law in Comparative Perspective, $892,484, GRF, 36 months
  • Kelley Loper, International human rights law and refugee protection in Asian states not party to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, $563,640, GRF, 24 months
  • Jianlin Chen, Law, State and Emerging Natural Resources: Theoretical Perspective and Case Study of Climate Resource Management in China, $570,000, GRF, 36 months
  • Richard Wu, An Empirical and Comparative Study of Law Students’ Perceptions of Their Values in Four Fastest-Growing Asian Countries: China, India, Thailand and Philippines, $844,880, GRF, 36 months
  • Michael Ng, Freedom of Expression, Media Censorship and the Rule of Law in British Hong Kong (1850s-1980s), GRF, 36 months
  • Daisy Cheung, Finding the Right Balance: Constructing a Theoretical Approach for the Assessment of Guardianship Systems for the Mentally Incapacitated in East Asia, ECS, $446,560, 36 months
  • Dan Matthews, The Aesthetics of Sovereignty in the Age of the Anthropocene, $289,032, ECS, 24 months
  • Shitong Qiao, National Laws and Local Land Reforms: The Spectrum of Legality, $555,400, ECS, 36 months.

Thursday, June 30, 2016

RGC Awards $4 Million in Research Grant Funding to HKU Faculty of Law

The Research Grants Council awarded more than $4 million in funding to seven of the Faculty of Law's General Research Fund projects 2016-2017.  The projects cover a wide range of topics: director and shareholder accountability, competition law, cyberbullying and privacy, med-arb in China, trusts for mentally incapacitated persons, personal injury compensation reform, and regulation of trade in endangered wild animals.  Congratulations to the following colleagues:
  • Ernest Lim, Rethinking Directorial and Shareholder Accountability, $352,500.
  • Kelvin Kwok (with Thomas Cheng as Co-I), Buyer Power under Competition Law: A Theoretical Examination and a Case Study of Hong Kong, $508,496.
  • Anne Cheung, Tackling Cyberbullying by Enhancing Privacy Protection: A Comparative and an Interdisciplinary Study, $1,072,190.
  • Gu Weixia (with Anselmo Reyes as Co-I), When Local Meets International: The Delicate Art of Med-Arb in China and Its Prospective Reform in a Comparative Context in Asia, $460,000.
  • Rebecca Lee (with Lusina Ho as Co-I), Special Needs Trusts for Mentally Incapacitated Persons in Hong Kong: A Proposed Framework, $825,800.
  • Felix Chan, Further Reforms in Hong Kong’s Personal Injury Compensation: An Inquisitive Perspective, $590,500. 
  • Amanda Whitfort,  A Comparative Evaluation of Hong Kong's Legislative Powers to Regulate Trade in Endangered Wild Animals, $370,500.


Thursday, July 2, 2015

Congratulations to RGC Research Grant Awardees (Faculty of Law)

Congratulations to Shahla Ali, Antonio Da Roza, Peter Chau, Hualing Fu, Marco Wan and Richard Wu on their successful 2015-2016 General Research Fund grants awarded by Hong Kong's Research Grants Council.  A range of interesting projects are funded including projects on civil mediation reform, unrepresented civil litigants, criminal punishment philosophy, Chinese public interest lawyers, law and film in Hong Kong, and a comparative study in Asia of law students' perception of values.  This year's excellent results represent a success rate of 55 per cent and a total amount of funding of more than HK$3.6 million.