Under an Acting President: How CityU's Governance Ran from the President's Resignation to the Search for a New President

In one line: City University of Hong Kong's fifth President resigned on 24 April 2026, roughly two years early, and the Provost and Deputy President immediately became Acting President; as of 9 September 2026, the Council's global search committee had been operating for more than seven weeks with no successor yet named^※。

24 April 2026 was a Friday. At 5.20pm, a three-paragraph government press release went up on schedule — the Education Bureau responding to media enquiries, confirming that the CityU President had resigned for personal reasons. No build-up, no farewell event, no transition countdown. Four months on, where has this seemingly abrupt handover actually got to?

City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK／CityU) integrated information database · Institutional governance module

Note: This piece is compiled from government press releases, verifiable CityU-related reporting, and the official recruitment pages of the retained executive-search firm. The President in office at the time and the Acting President are referred to throughout by title only ("the then-President", "the Acting President"), not by full name; the legislators interviewed are recorded under their real names as reported publicly, in a neutral commentary context.

This piece follows the verifiable public timeline, section by section, to answer exactly how far this governance transition has got.

# Why did the President resign so suddenly? What did officials say — and not say?

An Education Bureau spokesperson confirmed on the day, in response, that 「校長梅彥昌教授因私人理由，已向大學校董會辭任校長職務」("President Professor Freddy Boey has, for personal reasons, resigned the office of President to the University Council")^※ — the only formulation of a reason to appear in any official statement: personal reasons, unelaborated. The government press release also drew a clear line of responsibility: 「聘任校長屬於大學自主範圍以內的事宜，由城大校董會按《香港城市大學條例》（第1132章）賦予的權力自行處理」("The appointment of the President is a matter within the University's autonomy, to be handled by the CityU Council under the powers conferred by the City University of Hong Kong Ordinance (Cap. 1132)")^※; the government confined itself to expressing "respect" and "thanks", and did not involve itself in the search.

This fifth President took office on 18 May 2023, on an originally fixed five-year contract due to run to around 2028^※; this resignation falls roughly two years short of that term. No previous substantive President, across CityU's four earlier holders of the office, had ever left mid-term — a record broken in the spring of 2026. Several outlets verified the same appointment announcement: 「校董會行政委員會已即時委任首席及常務副校長李振聲教授為署理校長，以確保校務運作如常」("The Council's Executive Committee has, with immediate effect, appointed Professor Lee Chun-sing, Provost and Deputy President, as Acting President, to ensure the University's normal operations continue")^※。One easily overlooked detail in that sentence: the appointment decision was not made by the full Council, but by the Council's "Executive Committee" — a smaller standing group able to act the same day, a point taken up further in the section on governance boundaries below.

It is worth flagging accurately: every verified source — the Education Bureau notice, HK01, Tkww.hk, the Hong Kong Economic Times, and Cable News — uses only the phrase "personal reasons" and goes no further; no reliable public report discloses a specific cause^※。This piece does not speculate, and gives no weight to any unverified rumour.

# Who is the Acting President, and what has he done in these five months?

The Acting President is the former Provost and Deputy President. According to Tkww.hk, he joined CityU in 1994, served as Dean of the College of Science from 2021 to 2023, and has led the University's academic affairs and strategic development since June 2023, with a background in the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering^※ — in other words, the person taking over was no outside appointee, but a senior administrator who had already been overseeing university-wide academic and strategic affairs for nearly three years before the President's resignation. That is the personnel basis on which the phrase "to ensure normal operations continue" could actually hold true.

The acting title is not nominal. On 19 May 2026, the Acting President appeared in that capacity at the launch of CityU's "Future City Index 2025" report and spoke publicly^※：「城大FCI指數是一項透過大數據去評估城巿長遠發展及能力的工具，將進一步為大學提供堅實基礎，培育更多深科技人才及初創企業。」("CityU's FCI is a tool that uses big data to assess a city's long-term development and capacity; it will further provide the University with a solid foundation for cultivating more deep-tech talent and start-ups.") Also present and speaking at the same event were CityU Council Chairman Mr Michael Ngai and the Secretary for Labour and Welfare — an Acting President, a Council Chairman, and an accountable Secretary sharing the same stage. The launch itself is the most direct footnote to "normal operations continuing": five months after the resignation, the Acting President is still discharging the ordinary function of representing the University at public events and releasing academic output.

# Where does authority divide between an Acting President and a substantive President?

This is the key question for understanding the transition, and the one the official record answers most vaguely. CityU's website lists the Chancellor, Pro-Chancellor, Council Chairman, and President together as the University's "Principal Officers"^※, but "Acting President" is not an independent post specifically named in the Ordinance — it is an emergency arrangement: this appointment was made instantly by the Council's "Executive Committee", stated purpose "to ensure normal operations continue"^※, not a grant of any new power beyond day-to-day operation.

This stands in sharp contrast to how a substantive President is produced. Under the City University of Hong Kong Ordinance, appointing or removing a President requires a three-quarters majority of the Council^※ — a high-threshold act that must be solemnly voted on by the full Council — whereas appointing an Acting President runs through the Executive Committee's fast, on-the-spot track. This parallel arrangement of "fast stabilisation plus slow selection" is not hard to understand: the most urgent task during a transition is ensuring that teaching, research, and administration do not stall for want of authority, something the Executive Committee can decide the same day; but choosing the next President who will actually set direction for the whole University has to be left to a formal search process that requires a higher threshold of consensus and takes far longer. The table below sets the two decision paths side by side:

It should be stated accurately: this piece made repeated attempts to pull the official full text of the City University of Hong Kong Ordinance directly to verify the specific clause, but the page was dynamically rendered during this research, and repeated retrieval attempts returned blank content, making it impossible to check the clause number word for word — the "three-quarters majority" figure in the table above is carried over from an already-published sister article on this site that carries an official source; this piece does not repeat that primary verification and cites it only as governance background.

# How far has the Council's global search got?

Almost three months of silence separated the resignation from the search committee's public appearance. On 20 July 2026, CityU's Council announced the formation of a search committee to conduct a global search for a new President, and had already placed recruitment advertisements in international media and relevant websites^※。The report also honestly flagged what it did not have: who would chair the committee and the specific review timetable were both undisclosed.

The recruitment work was outsourced to an executive-search firm. Perrett Laver Limited's vacancy listing shows the coordinator as Gary Tang, with application materials required to include a current CV, a statement of qualifications, and a vision statement for the presidency, submissible online or by post to the firm's Central, Hong Kong office^※。The same posting on the Nature Careers platform gives a more precise timeline: 「審核申請和提名將於2026年中旬開始，並持續至職位填補」("Review of applications and nominations will begin in mid-2026 and continue until the position is filled"), with an application deadline of 18 September 2026^※。Lining up the dates across sources shows a clear, but still unfinished, trajectory:

This timeline itself answers the central question of this piece: as of 9 September 2026, the application deadline was still nine days away, so objectively the search process could not yet have produced a result^※，"under way" is the only accurate description of its status, and this piece makes no guess as to the identity of any candidate.

# What must the new President meet? What does a five-year contract mean?

The recruitment advertisement sets out a fairly specific candidate profile, and stresses the dimension of "local understanding" more than once. Cable News' report excerpts conditions including: holding a doctorate, a distinguished record in higher education, familiarity with Hong Kong's education landscape, and being expected to support the continued development of CityU's Dongguan campus while raising CityU's academic research performance and international standing^※。Perrett Laver's job description further requires candidates to have "a demonstrated record of leadership in a senior executive role at a leading university or comparable institution", together with a successful track record of leading institutional change, the highest standards of integrity, and excellent communication skills^※。On term of office, both recruitment channels give the same figure: the new President's first contract will be a fixed five-year term^※, consistent with the contract structure of the previous four substantive Presidents and matching the same specification as the fifth President's own five-year contract, verified elsewhere on this site^※ — the institutional design of the term length itself has not changed because of this unplanned resignation.

The requirement to "support the continued development of the Dongguan campus" is worth noting on its own: it is a new dimension in this round's recruitment advertisement, not previously emphasised in past presidential-search announcements, reflecting how CityU's expanding footprint in the Greater Bay Area in recent years has now been written into the capability requirements for top leadership, rather than remaining an extra task left to whichever President happens to be in office.

How long is this search likely to take? The previous round offers a reference point. The site's "Records of Past Presidents and Council Chairmen" verifies that the previous substantive President's search launched in autumn 2021, with a search committee and a nominating committee looking both globally and locally, taking around a year before the Council announced its appointment decision on 17 May 2022, and the President took office on 18 May 2023^※ — roughly eight months from launch to announcement, and then a full further year from announcement to taking office. Set against that precedent, this round's advertisement was published on 20 July 2026 with applications closing on 18 September; if it follows the same rhythm, the appointment decision is unlikely to be announced before the end of the year at the earliest. This piece makes no time prediction on that basis, and offers the historical reference only so readers can judge for themselves whether progress is fast or slow.

# With the presidency vacant, who has said operations are unaffected?

On the day the resignation was announced, two legislators offered brief comments, each with a different emphasis; this piece presents them side by side, as given, without adjudicating between them. Lau Chi-pang (Special Adviser to the President of Lingnan University and a legislator) took the view that 「香港大學體制已非常成熟，每間大學均有其對應的條例監管運作」("Hong Kong's university system is already very mature; every university has its corresponding ordinance governing its operation"), and therefore 「即使校長或副校長等管理層出缺，亦不會影響大學的實際業務運作」("even if leadership positions such as the President or Vice-President fall vacant, this will not affect the University's actual operations")^※。Chan Chun-ying, a HKU Council member and legislator, said he was 「感到意外」("caught by surprise") by the resignation, but judged the impact 「可控」("manageable")^※。Both hold posts connected to university governance — one a special adviser to the president of a sister institution, the other a Council member at his own institution (HKU) — and while their comments start from different vantage points, they point the same way: institutional stability takes priority over the shock of a personnel change itself. In a sense, these two comments are the closest thing to a grassroots test of the "mature system" claim: five months on, no report has surfaced of CityU's teaching, research, or administration being disrupted by the vacancy, which corroborates the Acting President's own record of normal duty-discharge at the public event on 19 May^※。

# Is this CityU's first acting transition?

No. The site's "Records of Past Presidents and Council Chairmen" verifies that CityU's history has seen only one previous acting arrangement, in 2007–2008^※, a short bridging period after the then-President's term had run its normal course and before the fourth President had yet taken office — a planned handover. The 2026 case is entirely different: the resignation fell in the middle of a contract term, with no successor publicly identified in advance, and the global recruitment and the acting arrangement began simultaneously. Only by placing the two acting periods side by side can the weight of the word "unplanned" be properly seen:

What the two acting arrangements share is that a senior Deputy President took over on a temporary basis and kept day-to-day operations running, and the institutional design itself has withstood two tests of a different nature; the difference is that this time the Council has had to launch, from scratch and without a candidate already in reserve, a global search spanning many months.

# As of 9 September 2026, exactly how far has the search progressed?

Accurately: still under way. To verify this question, this piece searched multiple rounds of public reporting and recruitment-platform information from July through September 2026, and found no reliable source disclosing the search committee's membership, any specific review-timetable milestone, or any candidate's identity^※。The application deadline given by the advertisement itself is 18 September, not yet reached^※; Perrett Laver's listing page shows the posting remaining live through 23 November — the two dates point respectively to the "application end" and the "listing display end", and are not in contradiction; they simply remind the reader that a formal shortlist is unlikely to emerge until after the application deadline, when the next stage begins.

This piece does not speculate about who the successor might be, nor does it infer whether the sitting Council Chairman also convenes the search committee — while that is common practice, no public report as of the time of writing states this arrangement explicitly, so this piece leaves the point blank rather than filling it in. This "nothing found" is, if anything, less a research shortfall than the most honest possible progress report: the time a presidential search needs to run its normal course is simply far longer than a single resignation story.

# Further reading

• Records of Past Presidents and Council Chairmen: From David Johns to the Unplanned 2026 Handover
• The Institutional Setting of CityU's Council Chairmanship — the Chancellor, Pro-Chancellor, the Court, and the Conferment of Honours
• Governance Structure and Legal Framework: The Four Bodies Under the City University of Hong Kong Ordinance
• Governance Controversies and the Academic-Autonomy Debate: From Employment-System Change to the National-Security-Law Era
• Council Chairman Lineage: The Terms, Backgrounds, and In-Office Events of Five Verifiable Chairmen Since 2006