24 November 2025 

HSUHK demonstrated its growing research strength and commitment to innovation at the Research Grants Council (RGC)’s Workshop and Poster Session on Competitive Research Funding Schemes for the Local Self-financing Degree Sector, held on 24 November 2025.

At the Poster Session, five HSUHK scholars presented their Faculty Development Scheme (FDS)-funded research projects, earning recognition for their originality and real-world relevance.

Dr Chris Ma, Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science, presented “Securing Smart-City Infrastructure using Markov Game”, an innovative framework that combines Markov Decision Processes with Game Theory. His research illuminates the strategic interplay between cyber defenders and attackers, enabling more sophisticated and adaptive protection for the complex networks powering future smart-cities.

Dr Carisa Yu, Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics, Statistics and Insurance, unveiled “Low-rank Matrix Optimization via Nonconvex Regularization with Applications”, a groundbreaking suite of nonconvex regularisation techniques and advanced algorithms that significantly outperform traditional methods. Her approach achieves superior accuracy and scalability in recovering low-rank structures from large, incomplete, or noisy datasets, opening new possibilities for high-impact applications across academia and industry in an increasingly data-driven world.

Dr Howard Song, Associate Professor in the School of Communication, shared his study “Acculturative Stress, Coping Strategies, and Social Support: A Cross-cultural Comparative Study of ‘Hong Kong Drifters’ and ‘Northward Drifters’ in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area”. By highlighting the key differences and common experiences of two distinct mobile populations, the research provides policymakers and organisations with evidence-based insights to improve talent retention, mental well-being, and regional integration.

Dr Tom Ng, Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics, Statistics and Insurance, presented “Inference for Multiple Change-Points in Piecewise Locally Stationary Time Series”, a powerful new statistical framework that precisely identifies the number, location, and nature of structural breaks in evolving data streams, while providing reliable confidence intervals. This advancement greatly strengthens forecasting, anomaly detection and risk managements in complex real-world settings, and empowers researchers and practitioners with advanced tools to navigate and interpret dynamic environments.

Dr Belinda Yau, Assistant Professor in the Department of Accountancy, offered a fresh perspective through “What do Expanded Audit Reports Tell? Initial Evidence from the United Kingdom”. By analysing the effects of mandatory Key Audit Matters disclosures, her study uncovers new aspects of auditor accountability and transparency, helping auditors benchmark practices, enabling investors to better assess audit quality, and guiding regulators on the impact of audit partner rotation – ultimately enhancing trust in financial reporting.

In the workshop session, Dr Linda Wang, Associate Professor in the Department of Management, was invited as an honourable guest speaker in recognition of the outstanding success of her FDS project. She shared valuable insights into the challenges and milestones encountered throughout her FDS project research journeys.

RGC has been forthcoming in supporting worthy research projects of the self-financing degree awarding (SF) sector as they play an important role in building Hong Kong as a higher education hub. The RGC’s support has been found to be useful in enhancing SF universities and institutions’ research capability and supporting the institutions in amassing strategic research clusters.