University of Bologna and Hong Kong: New Opportunities for Students, PhD Candidates, and Research Collaboration

The Vice Rector for International Relations recently travelled to Hong Kong for an official visit at the invitation of the Polytechnic University of Hong Kong. The visit builds on a first institutional meeting held in Bologna in 2023—thanks to partnerships with the Department of Computer Science and Engineering—and a follow-up meeting in March 2025. It provided an opportunity to continue discussions, particularly around two-way PhD mobility and the establishment of a joint PhD supervision agreement, open to all academic disciplines and leading to double degrees. Mobility for first- and second-cycle students is already set to begin in the next academic year, following the signing of a Framework Agreement in 2024. Among the key topics of interest in PolyU’s academic offering, and areas where increased research collaboration is encouraged, are entrepreneurship, design, and artificial intelligence.

During the visit, the Vice Rector also met with leadership representatives from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and City University of Hong Kong, both long-standing institutional partners. In the first case, building on the successful experience of collaboration within the Global Alliance of Medical Excellence (GAME), the partners proposed expanding scientific cooperation to include Medical Humanities and bioethics—areas in which the Chinese University of Hong Kong has established a dedicated research centre in recent years. Colleagues at the City University of Hong Kong, for their part, suggested organising joint workshops (either online or in person) and facilitating exchanges of visiting professors, primarily in the fields of engineering and business. These activities are expected to foster doctoral mobility as well as new forms of collaboration involving companies.

Last but not least, discussions have begun on drafting a student mobility agreement with the University of Hong Kong—one of Asia’s most prominent academic institutions, currently ranked second in the QS Asia Rankings and 35th in the Times Higher Education World Rankings.