Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s Guangzhou campus will open in September 2022 as scheduled despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the campus’ new president said on Monday.

So far, the university has received about 1,500 applications, with approximately 87 percent of them from the mainland, 10 percent from abroad, and 3 percent from Hong Kong.

In the Fall Semester 2021-22 enrollment, the target is 150 students worldwide to be admitted to full-time doctorate or Master of Philosophy programs, under a pilot program rolled out on the Hong Kong campus in 2019. Nearly 260 students are participating in the program.

As planned, once the new campus is open, students under the program who now study in Hong Kong will move to Guangzhou for further study, together with the expected 700 new students enrolled in the Fall Semester of 2022. By September 2022, around 1,100 students are expected to be enrolled on the new campus, located in Guangzhou’s Nansha district

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As planned, once the new campus is open, students under the program who now study in Hong Kong will move to Guangzhou for further study, together with the expected 700 new students enrolled in the Fall Semester of 2022. By September 2022, around 1,100 students are expected to be enrolled on the new campus, located in Guangzhou’s Nansha district.

Noting that central to the academic framework is the cross-disciplinary education model, President Lionel Ni Ming-shuan pointed out students will obtain knowledge from at least two disciplines under the supervision of two co-advisers from different academic areas.

The degree courses on Guangzhou campus will not overlap those provided in Hong Kong, he added, citing that the subjects include, but will not be limited to, artificial intelligence, biomedical engineering and computational media.

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To facilitate the exchange between two campuses, the new campus will be adjacent to the Qingsheng railway station in Nansha district, a pilot development zone in the southernmost part of Guangzhou. The journey between Qingsheng station and the Hong Kong West Kowloon railway station takes only about 30 minutes.

By now, 160 faculty members have been recruited for the new campus, with 60 of them being academic staffs. The number of recruited scholars from around the world is expected to reach 150 before September 2022 and 400 by 2027.