CityUHK Research Institutes: State Key Laboratories, HKIAS and Other Research Platforms

City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) comprehensive information database · Module 04: Research This article surveys CityUHK's national-level research platforms (State Key Laboratories, a Hong Kong branch of a National Engineering Research Centre), its flagship university-level research institutes (centred on the Hong Kong Institute for Advanced Study, HKIAS), and its principal institutes and centres. Dates, mainland Chinese partners and host faculties/departments are annotated wherever possible; where no source is available, this is stated explicitly. Quantitative output and rankings can be found in overview-achievements.md; named chairs and academicians are covered in named-centres-and-honours.md.

---

Hong Kong's list of State Key Laboratories includes only two CityUHK entries — but both carry considerable weight: one is the first State Key Laboratory in the history of Hong Kong engineering (in terahertz and millimetre waves), and the other is the city's only national-level platform focused on marine ecology and environmental health. Add to these a research institute that counts multiple Nobel laureates among its fellows, and CityUHK has built — with a modest number of platforms — a tiered research architecture running from national level down through university and faculty levels. This article walks through that architecture in full.

---

# 1. State Key Laboratories (SKL)

CityUHK currently operates two State Key Laboratories, in the fields of engineering and marine environment respectively:

# 1.1 State Key Laboratory of Terahertz and Millimeter Waves (SKLTMW)

The State Key Laboratory of Terahertz and Millimeter Waves was approved for establishment by the national Ministry of Science and Technology in March 2008^※ and is the first State Key Laboratory in Hong Kong in the engineering disciplines. The laboratory focuses on the frontiers and applications of millimetre-wave and terahertz technology, with core research directions including antenna design, radio-frequency integrated circuit (RFIC) design, and fast electromagnetic computational methods. In recent years its research has extended into 6G communications, terahertz imaging and spectroscopy. Hosted by CityUHK's Department of Electrical Engineering, the laboratory has long served as the University's flagship showcase platform in electronics/electromagnetics/wireless communications.

# 1.2 State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Health (SKLMEH, formerly SKLMP)

The marine-focused State Key Laboratory has a history of renaming worth distinguishing clearly:

• Predecessor: State Key Laboratory of Marine Pollution (SKLMP). CityUHK was approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology in November 2009^※ to establish the laboratory, which was officially founded in 2010. It has long served as Hong Kong's leading marine research platform, bringing together more than 50 interdisciplinary researchers from eight local universities (HKU, HKUST, CUHK, PolyU, CityU, HKBU, EdUHK and HKMU)^※. Its core areas include marine pollution, ecotoxicology, microplastic monitoring and coral health.
• Restructuring and rename: State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Health (SKLMEH). According to public information, in 2025 the Ministry of Science and Technology approved the restructuring of SKLMP into SKLMEH, positioning it as Hong Kong's only national-level research platform focused on marine ecology and environmental health, continuing under the eight-university joint model. The laboratory director is Professor Kenneth Leung (梁美仪) (per the SKLMEH official website^※).

Recent signature work of the laboratory includes the United Nations-recognised "Global Estuaries Monitoring (GEM)" ten-year programme, which studies environmental contaminants in estuaries around the world (for more on marine research, see veterinary-and-life-sciences-research.md).

---

# 2. Hong Kong Branch of a National Engineering Research Centre (NPMM)

Beyond the State Key Laboratories, CityUHK hosts one Hong Kong branch of a National Engineering Research Centre:

• Hong Kong Branch of National Precious Metals Material Engineering Research Center (NPMM). This branch was approved by the national Ministry of Science and Technology in November 2015^※. Its core objective is to advance research on precious metals and nanomaterials and related devices, thereby strengthening the overall capability of the national centre. The branch is closely tied to CityUHK's Centre for Advanced Structural Materials (CASM) and its materials-science strengths (see materials-and-engineering-research.md).

---

# 3. Hong Kong Institute for Advanced Study (HKIAS)

The Hong Kong Institute for Advanced Study (HKIAS) is the most internationally prominent interdisciplinary platform in CityUHK's research system.

• Establishment: HKIAS was founded in November 2015^※, at the initiative of then-Vice-Chancellor Way Kuo (郭位) (Kuo served as CityUHK's President from 2008 to 2023 and has since retired; this records the neutral historical fact of the Institute's founding).
• Positioning: The Institute convenes leading scholars from around the world (including multiple Nobel laureates) to explore frontier science through an interdisciplinary approach. The current Executive Director is Professor Xun-Li Wang (王循理) (Chair Professor of Physics).
• Senior Fellows: HKIAS confers the title of "Senior Fellow" on a roster of internationally distinguished scientists, either in residence or by association (listed individually in named-centres-and-honours.md), including winners of the Nobel Prize, the Fields Medal, the Wolf Prize and the Shaw Prize.

---

# 4. University-level Research Institutes and Major Centres

In recent years CityUHK has established a dense network of university-level interdisciplinary research institutes in response to national and Hong Kong innovation-and-technology strategies. The main ones include:

Note: The CityUHK Research Office's "Institutes, Centres and Laboratories" page additionally lists dozens of faculty- and department-level research centres (creative media, data science, energy and environment, law, business, humanities and social sciences, etc.). They are numerous and their establishment dates are scattered; this database does not attempt an exhaustive list and covers only the external flagship platforms. For HKAI-Sci see creative-media-and-data-research.md; for OHRP see veterinary-and-life-sciences-research.md.

---

# 5. The Platform Landscape in the Official Account: 7 Research Institutes, 2 State Key Laboratories, 3 CAS Joint Laboratories

If we step back from the individual platforms and take stock through the lens of CityUHK's official Facts & Figures, a fuller tiered structure emerges. According to CityUHK's official Facts & Figures^※, the University operates research platforms at the following levels:

This inventory falls into three tiers: university-run (research institutes and centres), national-level accreditation (State Key Laboratories and the National Engineering Research Centre), and joint ventures (the CAS joint laboratories).

The heaviest hitters are the national-level accreditations — the 2 State Key Laboratories and the 1 National Engineering Research Centre.

The CAS–CityUHK Joint Laboratories (3 in number), meanwhile, reflect CityUHK's deep collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, mainland China's premier research institution — a collaboration that is at once scientific and strategic, serving as a channel through which CityUHK aligns with national science-and-technology strategy and plugs into the Greater Bay Area innovation network (for the University's national strategic role, see 09-international/national-strategic-role.md).

These platforms are the organisational "carriers" of CityUHK's research output: the university research institutes and centres marshal research strength across departments to tackle major questions; the State Key Laboratories and National Engineering Research Centre concentrate national-level resources in the strong directions of materials and engineering; and the joint laboratories extend the breadth and depth of research through partner institutions. It is precisely this platform architecture that underpins CityUHK's patent championship (see 04-research/output-and-startups.md), its highly cited scholars (see 06-people/faculty-and-leaders.md) and its top-journal publications, providing both the organisational structure and the equipment base.

A note on the figures: the counts above change as designations are granted, added or restructured. The numbers cited here reflect CityUHK's official Facts & Figures snapshot at a particular point in time; for the specific names, research directions and leadership of each platform, refer to CityUHK's official pages and Sections 1–4 of this article. Designations such as "State Key Laboratory" are subject to strict official accreditation criteria; this database relays the official pages without independently verifying each accreditation document.

---

# 6. Summary

• CityUHK operates two State Key Laboratories — Terahertz and Millimeter Waves (SKLTMW, March 2008; the first in Hong Kong in the engineering field) and Marine Environmental Health (SKLMEH, formerly the Marine Pollution laboratory SKLMP, November 2009 / 2010, restructured 2025) — together with one Hong Kong branch of a National Engineering Research Centre (NPMM, precious metals materials, November 2015).
• The flagship university-level research institute is the Hong Kong Institute for Advanced Study (HKIAS, November 2015), which convenes a roster of Nobel-calibre Senior Fellows; in recent years it has been joined by the Hong Kong Institute for Clean Energy (HKICE, 2021) and the Hong Kong Institute of AI for Science (HKAI-Sci, October 2024), among others.
• According to the official Facts & Figures^※, CityUHK as a whole operates 7 university research institutes, 2 State Key Laboratories, 1 National Engineering Research Centre, approximately 30 faculty/college research centres and 3 CAS–CityUHK joint laboratories; the national-level platforms carry the greatest prestige, while the CAS joint laboratories are the channel for aligning with national science-and-technology strategy and the Greater Bay Area network.
• This platform architecture underpins CityUHK's patents, highly cited scholars and top-journal output; the counts change as designations shift, and the official pages are the authoritative reference.

---