CityU's History: From City Polytechnic to City University of Hong Kong

Forty years ago, this was still a temporarily borrowed government building in Mong Kok, bearing a sign that read "City Polytechnic of Hong Kong" — without so much as a proper campus of its own. City University of Hong Kong (CityU) traces its origins to the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong, founded in 1984, and was formally rechristened a university in 1994 — roughly four decades in all. This article is a full historical overview and major-event chronology; the pre-1984 founding backstory (policy background, naming, first president) and the details of the polytechnic era are covered separately in The Founding Story and the Polytechnic Era, an in-depth look at the evolution of the name in Name Changes: From Polytechnic to University, and governance structure and successive presidents in governance-structure-and-presidents.md.

# 1 · The 1980s: Founding days of the City Polytechnic

• 1982: The Hong Kong government plans a second polytechnic (targeting roughly 8,000^※ full-time students).
• 1983: Comes under the funding umbrella of the University and Polytechnic Grants Committee (UPGC); the first president, David Johns, takes office.
• 1 January 1984: The City Polytechnic of Hong Kong is legally established.
• 8 October 1984: Teaching formally begins with an inaugural cohort of 480 full-time^※ and 680 part-time^※ students; premises are located at the temporary Mong Kok site.
• 1987: The Department of Law is established — the seed of what would later become the School of Law (per Wikipedia's CityU School of Law page^※).
• August 1989: The first phase of the permanent campus on Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong, is completed; in the same year founding president David Johns steps down and is succeeded by Cheng Yiu-chung.

(Details of the founding years can be found in The Founding Story and the Polytechnic Era.)

# 2 · The 1990s: Relocation, university title, and disciplinary expansion

• January 1990: The City Polytechnic moves onto the new Tat Chee Avenue campus in Kowloon Tong; the first phase of supporting facilities opens, inaugurated by Governor Sir David Wilson (per Wikipedia^※).
• October 1990: In one stroke, three faculties are established — the Faculty of Business, the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Faculty of Science and Technology — setting the skeleton of today's disciplinary structure; on 1 November of the same year, a School of Professional and Continuing Education is added to absorb professional and extension programmes (per Wikipedia^※). That these faculties were split off well before the 1994 rechristening shows CityU had already been operating along university lines under the "polytechnic" title for years; the renaming was more an acknowledgement of an accomplished fact (for the evolution of governance structures, see governance-structure-and-presidents.md).
• 1992: The Department of Professional Legal Education is established (per Wikipedia's CityU School of Law page^※).
• 1993: The second phase of the Tat Chee Avenue campus is completed; the City Polytechnic, together with Baptist College and the Hong Kong Polytechnic, receives university title (in principle) (per the UGC's official history^※); in July 1993, the Governor-in-Council grants the institution self-accrediting status (per Wikipedia^※), paving the way for the following year's renaming; in March 1993, the two law departments merge into the Faculty of Law, later renamed the School of Law.
• 1994: Officially rechristened City University of Hong Kong; on 25 November 1994^※ the UGC confers self-accrediting status, and the Legislative Council passes the City University of Hong Kong Ordinance (Cap. 1132), formally granting university title (for the legislative process behind the renaming, see Name Changes: From Polytechnic to University).
  • Cheng Yiu-chung's presidency (1989.8–1996^※) spans the crucial "polytechnic → university" transition; in 1996 he moves on to become Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong.
• 1996: H.K. Chang (张信刚) becomes President (May 1996–2007^※) — a biomedical engineer by training, he drives internationalisation and disciplinary reorganisation.
• 1 July 1997: The handover of sovereignty over Hong Kong; the role of CityU's Chancellor automatically passes from the Governor to the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, as is customary for statutory institutions.
• 1998: The School of Creative Media (SCM) is founded (per English Wikipedia^※) — among the earliest schools of its kind in the region, blending art, technology and media, and destined to become one of CityU's calling cards (see superlatives-and-milestones.md).

# 3 · The 2000s: The close of the H.K. Chang era and Way Kuo's arrival

• 2007: President H.K. Chang reaches the end of his term, concluding roughly eleven years in office.
• 14 May 2008: Way Kuo (郭位) becomes President (2008–2023^※). Kuo, an authority on reliability engineering, is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, an Academician of Taiwan's Academia Sinica, and a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (per English Wikipedia^※); before taking up the post he served as Dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Tennessee from 2003–2008^※. His fifteen-year tenure became the crucial phase in CityU's rise into the world's top 100.
• 2008: According to the University's own accounts, CityU is granted State Key Laboratory status around this time in the millimetre-wave/terahertz field (per Wikipedia^※).
• July 2009: The School of Energy and Environment is established — the first school in Hong Kong dedicated to cross-disciplinary research and professional education in energy and the environment (per CityU's School of Energy and Environment^※).

# 4 · The 2010s: Veterinary medicine, a new Creative Media building, and the world's top 100

• 2009: CityU establishes a partnership with Cornell University in the United States and begins planning a veterinary school in Hong Kong (per CityU's JCC^※).
• 2011: The Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre — designed by architect Daniel Libeskind — opens, becoming a new landmark for the School of Creative Media (per Wikipedia^※).
• 2014: The School of Veterinary Medicine is founded, launching Hong Kong's first veterinary education programme (per CityU's JCC^※).
• 2016: The Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine degree is launched (modelled on Cornell's curriculum) (per CityU's JCC^※).
• 2017: The first cohort of Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine students enrols — Hong Kong's first-ever veterinary degree programme (per CityU's JCC^※).
• August 2018: Following a donation from the Hong Kong Jockey Club, the School of Veterinary Medicine is renamed the Jockey Club College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences (JCC) at a naming ceremony (per CityU press release^※).
• Late 2010s: CityU enters the world's top 100 in several rankings, including QS, THE and U.S. News (per CityU News^※).

# 5 · The 2020s: A change of president, split-offs, a residence village, Dongguan and "most international"

# Change of President (Way Kuo → Freddy Boey)

• 13 May 2023: President Way Kuo reaches the end of his term, concluding fifteen years in office (per Sina Finance^※).
• 14 May 2023: Freddy Boey (梅彦昌) takes office as President (14.5.2023–24.4.2026^※) — a materials science/bioengineering scholar and former Deputy President of the National University of Singapore.

# Faculty and institutional restructuring

• 19 August 2024: The University announces the establishment of the College of Computing, operational from 1 September 2024^※. It brings together three departments: the Department of Biostatistics (formerly under the College of Science), the Department of Computer Science (formerly under the College of Engineering), and the Department of Data Science, formed from the reorganisation of the former School of Data Science. The incoming Dean is Professor Wang Jianping (per CityU Endowment Campaign press release^※); existing undergraduate and postgraduate programmes and admission requirements remain unchanged.
• 1 January 2025: The College of Biomedicine becomes fully operational, comprising three constituent units — the Department of Biomedical Sciences, the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Neuroscience. Its aim is to combine biomedicine, engineering, neuroscience and digital health, and to attract international pharmaceutical and medical-device companies to conduct R&D and clinical trials in Hong Kong (per CityU press release^※), in line with the SAR government's policy direction of developing Hong Kong into an international hub for medical innovation. With this, CityU's total number of colleges and schools reaches 11^※.

# Campus and teaching footprint expansion

• 2024: The Lee Shau Kee Student Residence Village at Pak Shek Kok, Ma On Shan, opens, providing over 2,000^※ beds and built using Modular Integrated Construction (MiC).
• April 2024: China's Ministry of Education approves the formal establishment of City University of Hong Kong (Dongguan).
• 2 September 2024: CityU (Dongguan) opens its doors to more than 500^※ first-year students, with four undergraduate programmes initially on offer: computer science, intelligent manufacturing, materials, and energy and power.

# The peak of internationalisation

• 2024: CityU is ranked No. 1 in the THE "Most International Universities in the World" for the first time (per CityU News^※).
• 2025 and 2026: Retains the top spot in consecutive years, achieving a three-peat (per The Standard^※).

# The 2026 resignation of the President

• 24 April 2026: The University announces that President Freddy Boey is resigning for personal reasons, effective immediately — less than three years after taking office in 2023, and roughly two years ahead of his contract's end (per CityU press release^※ and SCMP^※).
• The Council's Executive Committee immediately appoints Provost and Deputy President Lee Chun-sing as Acting President to maintain operational stability; the University will begin a global search for a successor (per CityU press release^※). During the transition, University operations continue as usual, with Lee Chun-sing appearing publicly in his acting capacity (such as at the May launch of the 2025 Future City Index report), indicating that the change of leadership has not disrupted day-to-day operations.

The neutral factual account of the presidential resignation is given here; this archive makes no causal judgement. For related governance and controversy angles (if any), see 13-governance-and-reform/. For a full timeline of recent developments, see Recent Developments 2020–2026.

# 6 · Quick reference: key years

# 7 · The evolution of the faculty structure

CityU now has 11^※ colleges and schools. From three faculties in 1990 to the College of Biomedicine in 2025, the structure has undergone several rounds of splits and reorganisations. The following table charts the major colleges and schools by their year of establishment:

(For a college-by-college rundown of "firsts", see superlatives-and-milestones.md; for a quick-reference overview of the current faculties and departments, see general-facts.md; for a character portrait of CityU as a whole, see campus-character-and-identity.md.)