About Hong Kong Young Academy of Sciences

Hong Kong Young Academy of Sciences

The Hong Kong Young Academy of Sciences (YASHK) is Hong Kong's learned academy for outstanding mid-career scientists, based in Hong Kong, China. Established in 2018 as an autonomous chapter of the Hong Kong Academy of Sciences (ASHK), it gathers young scientists who work as faculty members at Hong Kong's tertiary institutions and puts their energy at the service of Hong Kong science — promoting the development and advancement of science and technology, popularising science, deepening cooperation between scientists and industrialists, nurturing talent, and advising the public and the authorities on science and technology matters. Where its parent academy, ASHK, confers Hong Kong's highest academic honour on established scientists of world renown, the Young Academy exists to catch scientists earlier, while they are still building their careers, and to give them a collective platform that no single university department can provide. Its members are elected competitively while under the age of 45, and its work is deliberately complementary to that of ASHK rather than a smaller copy of it. Its official website is yashk.org.hk.

Establishment in 2018 as a Chapter of ASHK

The Young Academy's legal and institutional origin is precise. By a resolution of the Board of the Hong Kong Academy of Sciences dated 29 October 2018, YASHK was established under the auspices of ASHK as one of its chapters, to operate within the limitations set out in its constitution or as otherwise limited by the Board. The parent body itself was still young: ASHK had been formally established on 5 December 2015, at an inaugural ceremony at Government House attended by the then Chief Executive, China's Minister of Science and Technology and the President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Within three years, that academy had decided that Hong Kong science also needed a young academy — a structure used by many national academy systems around the world, in which a young academy gives mid-career researchers their own voice, their own outreach programmes and a training ground in academic leadership, while remaining anchored to the senior academy. YASHK is described in ASHK and university sources as an autonomous chapter: autonomous in its day-to-day work and leadership, a chapter in its constitutional position.

Inauguration on 9 June 2019

Although established in 2018, the Young Academy was publicly inaugurated the following year. Its inauguration ceremony was held on 9 June 2019 — university reports place it at Hong Kong Science Park — and was officiated by Carrie Lam, the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The presence of the Chief Executive at the launch of a body for scientists under 45 was itself a statement about the importance the Hong Kong government attached to science, technology and innovation at that moment, when Hong Kong had been identified as a centre of science and technology innovation in the Greater Bay Area. ASHK's own brochure records the inaugural period slightly differently in one summary, referring to an inaugural ceremony in September 2019 attended by the Chief Executive and the then Secretary for Innovation and Technology, Nicholas Yang, together with many scientists and community leaders; the university reports of the June ceremony, naming the founding members who attended, are the more detailed contemporary record. Either way, 2019 was the year the Young Academy stepped into public life, with its founding cohort presented together for the first time.

The Founding Members and Membership

The Young Academy began with 31 founding members. Contemporary reports from the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong agree on that number and on the character of the cohort: all were young elites drawn from various fields of science and technology, including mathematics, chemistry, physics and biology. Six of the founding members were from the Chinese University of Hong Kong alone, among them scholars from life sciences, biomedical engineering, physics, mechanical and automation engineering, chemical pathology and earth system science — an early sign that membership would span the experimental, mathematical and engineering sciences rather than a single discipline. Three founding members came from the University of Hong Kong's Faculty of Engineering, in electrical and electronic engineering and in mechanical engineering. Membership then grew: ASHK reporting records 53 members, and university announcements in the early 2020s continued to describe YASHK as having 53 young scientists as its members. Election is competitive and age-bounded: members are faculty at Hong Kong tertiary institutions, elected while under the age of 45. Later elections show the system renewing itself — in one recent round, 12 scholars across five universities were elected, with effect from 1 January 2026, and individual universities regularly announce the election of their own professors to the Young Academy as a mark of distinction in medical research, engineering and other fields.

Parent Body: The Hong Kong Academy of Sciences

To understand YASHK, a reader needs its parent. The Hong Kong Academy of Sciences is Hong Kong's senior academy of science, whose membership is described by ASHK as Hong Kong's highest academic honour, conferred by peer scientists to recognise outstanding contributions. ASHK had 38 world-renowned scientists as members at the time of the brochure record cited in research. The Young Academy was designed to leverage ASHK's established strengths and its network with the academic, industrial and public sectors, capitalising on its own academic excellence while tying in with the region's development needs. In practice that means the two academies work as a pair: the senior academy supplies standing, networks and convening power; the young academy supplies numbers, energy and a direct connection to the generation of scientists who teach Hong Kong's students, run its active laboratories and will lead its institutions in the decades ahead. YASHK's stated objective, repeated across university announcements, is to gather young scientists to jointly promote the development of science and technology with ASHK — the word "with" capturing the intended relationship exactly.

Leadership: From Lap-Chee Tsui to Vic Law and Anderson Shum

The Young Academy's founding president was Lap-Chee Tsui, the former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong and a geneticist of international standing, who was also President of ASHK. That a figure of Tsui's seniority served as founding president underlines that the Young Academy was launched under the direct patronage of the senior academy's leadership, not left to find its feet alone. By the time of its first education event in July 2019, however, the Academy's own president speaking for it was Vic Law, who presented himself in that role when he said that, as researchers and educators, it was their duty to pass on their knowledge of and passion for the sciences to the next generation. In 2022, Anderson Shum of the University of Hong Kong — Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Associate Vice-President (Research and Innovation) of the university, and himself one of the founding members — was appointed President of YASHK, after the Academy's Executive Committee had appointed the second term of members. The succession from a founding president of Tsui's stature, through Law, to a president drawn from the founding member cohort itself marks the Academy's maturation: by 2022 it was being led by one of its own generation.

Governance and Sub-Committees

The Young Academy is governed through its Executive Committee, the body that appoints new terms of members and appoints the president. ASHK's brochure record notes that four sub-committees were set up under the YASHK Executive Committee, beginning with an Academic Committee. The details of committee work matter less for a directory profile than the structure they reveal: this is a working academy, not merely an honour roll. Its members are expected to serve — on committees, in outreach programmes, in education events and in the Academy's public advice — and the committee system is how a membership of several dozen busy faculty members, spread across every tertiary institution in Hong Kong, turns individual distinction into collective programmes. Because members remain full-time university academics, that voluntary service model is also the Academy's main constraint, and its programmes are chosen accordingly: focused talk series, school-facing education work and public engagement that members can deliver alongside their teaching and research.

Science Education and Popularisation

Science popularisation and education are at the centre of the Young Academy's public work. Its first education event was the 2019 talk series Emerging Technologies — Science, Opportunities and Challenges, co-organised with the Hong Kong Academy for Gifted Education (HKAGE) for secondary school teachers and students. Announced on 12 July 2019, the series of talks and workshops was designed to keep the next generation abreast of the opportunities and challenges of the new industrial revolution, in which emerging technologies have a revolutionary impact on the way of living. Lap-Chee Tsui gave the opening remarks, endorsing the series and noting Hong Kong's identification as the centre of science and technology innovation in the Greater Bay Area, while the HKAGE's executive director welcomed participants alongside him. YASHK itself described the kickoff talk as its first education event, setting a milestone in serving the Hong Kong education sector. University reporting of the inauguration likewise stressed that YASHK aims to promote STEM in secondary schools and arouse students' interest in science. That school-facing mission distinguishes a young academy from a senior one: its members are close enough to the classroom and the undergraduate laboratory to speak credibly to school students about what a scientific career actually involves.

Industry, Talent and Advice

Beyond education, the research record sets out three further strands in the Academy's remit. First, it deepens cooperation between scientists and industrialists — a bridge role that matters in Hong Kong, where university research and commercial technology development have not always been closely joined, and where the Greater Bay Area development agenda has pushed both sides towards collaboration. Second, it nurtures talent: by electing scientists under 45 competitively and giving them a territory-wide network outside their own departments, the Academy helps retain and develop exactly the cohort Hong Kong most needs to keep. Third, it advises the public and the authorities on science and technology matters, working complementarily with ASHK. That advisory role is collective and institutional rather than individual consultancy: when the Young Academy speaks, it speaks as a body of elected young scientists from across Hong Kong's universities. Its members also appear in wider Asian science forums — a vice-president of YASHK moderated a panel at the 2025 Asian Young Scientist Fellowship annual conference during Future Science Prize Week at the University of Hong Kong — placing the Hong Kong young academy inside the region's emerging young-scientist networks.

Place in Hong Kong Science

The Hong Kong Young Academy of Sciences occupies a specific and, since 2019, a visible place in Hong Kong science. It is not a university, a funder or a government agency, and it awards no degrees and runs no laboratories of its own. Its assets are its members — competitively elected faculty scientists under 45, 31 at the founding and 53 in later reporting — its chapter relationship to the Hong Kong Academy of Sciences, and the willingness of those members to work together on education, outreach, industry links and advice. For students, it offers contact with working scientists through series such as Emerging Technologies. For its members, it offers a cross-institutional community and early experience of academy leadership, of which Anderson Shum's rise from founding member to president is the clearest example. For Hong Kong, it offers a standing body that can say what the rising generation of its scientists thinks science and technology in the city should become. That is the gap it was created by the ASHK Board's resolution of 29 October 2018 to fill, and the inauguration officiated by the Chief Executive on 9 June 2019 announced that it had begun to fill it.