Complete list of departments, schools and teaching units at CUHK

Module 01: Academics · Sub-file: Department List Last updated: 10 July 2026 According to CUHK's admissions office, the University's 8 Faculties comprise about 61 departments offering more than 330 programmes（Admissions Office, "Faculties & Programmes"）^※. This article lists every teaching unit faculty by faculty, with names cross-checked against each faculty's official pages. CUHK's teaching units operate at three organisational levels: Department, School (a faculty-level unit within a department or at departmental level) and Teaching Unit / Centre. Each is labelled accordingly below.

---

# 1. Faculty of Arts (11 departments + 1 centre + 2 teaching units)

According to its website, the Faculty of Arts comprises 11 departments, 1 centre and 2 teaching units^※:

The Department of Translation (founded 1972) and the Department of Music are signature departments of the Faculty of Arts. For in-depth coverage, see special-departments.md.

---

# 2. Faculty of Science (6 teaching units)

According to its website, the Faculty of Science comprises 6 departments/schools^※:

A cross-faculty unit — the Zhizhen School of Interdisciplinary Mathematical Sciences — is also attached to the Faculty of Science; see faculties.md and "Structural changes, 2023–2025" below.

Recent changes of note within the Faculty of Science: the Department of Statistics and Data Science began life as the Department of Statistics, founded in 1982^※ (its first head was the statistician Howell Tong; the inaugural cohort numbered just 17 students). It adopted its present name in 2025 to bring in a data-science stream. The School of Life Sciences is the only unit at departmental level within the Faculty of Science that retains the "School" designation; it was formed by merging several biology-related departments. The table above reflects the current structure — department names and mergers shift every few years as disciplines evolve, so the official faculty pages are the best source for the latest version.

---

# 3. Faculty of Social Science (8 units, including 3 schools)

According to its website, the Faculty of Social Science comprises 8 teaching units (including 3 Schools)^※:

The School of Architecture began as a department in 1991 and was upgraded in 2009; see special-departments.md. For in-depth coverage of the Schools of Journalism and Communication, Architecture, and Governance and Policy Science, see 八大学院总览 (Chinese) / the faculty overview.

The School of Governance and Policy Science is the newest unit in the table: its predecessor was the Department of Government and Public Administration, which had a 54-year history^※ (established 1970). The Council approved a restructuring plan in February 2024, and in August of that year the department was formally absorbed into the newly created School of Governance and Policy Science^※. Following the merger, the School offers not only the existing "Government and Public Administration" undergraduate programme but two new streams — Global Studies and Data Science and Policy Studies — reflecting a broader shift in social-science education towards interdisciplinary, policy-analytic work. The School of Journalism and Communication, by contrast, is one of the Faculty's longest-established units: according to its website, it traces its roots to the Department of Journalism, founded in 1965 and the oldest journalism and communication teaching institution in Hong Kong^※. In the 1970s the then professor and department head invited Wilbur Schramm, a founding figure of communication studies, to Hong Kong to help launch the M.Phil. programme in communication. The unit was renamed from "Department" to "School" in 1999^※, the same year it launched its first taught postgraduate programme (the MA in Journalism). The School's website puts its alumni body at over 9,000^※.

---

# 4. Faculty of Education (4 departments + 1 unit)

According to its website, the Faculty of Education comprises 4 departments + 1 Physical Education Unit^※:

The Faculty of Education began as a School of Education founded in 1965 and was upgraded to Faculty status only in the 1991/92 academic year. For in-depth coverage of the division of labour among its four departments, the PGDE and BEd routes to qualified teacher status, and the distinction between "registered teachers" and "permitted teachers" in Hong Kong's teacher-registration system, see education-faculty-and-teacher-training.md.

---

# 5. Faculty of Business Administration (2 schools + 4 departments)

According to its website, the Faculty of Business Administration comprises 2 schools and 4 departments^※, plus the Asia-Pacific Institute of Business:

The Department of Decisions, Operations and Technology was formerly the Department of Decision Sciences and Managerial Economics and was renamed in 2023. The dates given for the upgrading of the School of Accountancy and the founding of the School of Hotel and Tourism Management follow the CUHK Business School Milestones page^※. The Faculty of Business Administration as a whole was established in 1974 — the first faculty created at CUHK after the original trio of Arts, Science and Social Science. For the full history, see faculties.md.

---

# 6. Faculty of Medicine (19 schools, departments and units)

According to its website, the Faculty of Medicine comprises 19 schools, departments and units^※ spanning clinical and basic sciences:

Schools (5)

Clinical and basic science departments (14)

For an in-depth profile of the Faculty of Medicine — teaching hospitals, research milestones, and the 2013 restructuring of the School of Chinese Medicine — see deepdive-medicine.md.

---

# 7. Faculty of Engineering (6 departments)

According to its website, the Faculty of Engineering comprises 6 departments^※:

The Department of Computer Science and Engineering was Hong Kong's first computer science department. For in-depth coverage, including its links to SenseTime, see 八大学院总览 (Chinese) / the faculty overview.

---

# 8. Faculty of Law (a single-faculty structure)

The Faculty of Law operates as a single faculty without departmental divisions, with a graduate division and programme directors（Faculty of Law website）^※. Programme directors and research centres for the LLB, JD, LLM and PCLL are listed in programs.md. The Faculty of Law is the youngest of the eight faculties — approval for its establishment came only in May 2004, making it Hong Kong's third law school after HKU and CityU. The unit was built up in a year on a site beside a construction site in Central, began teaching in 2006, was upgraded to Faculty status in August 2008, and launched its first PCLL in the same year. For the full founding story, see faculty-of-law-2004-founding.md.

---

# 9. How the "about 61 departments" figure is counted

• CUHK's official figure of "about 61 departments" counts Departments and departmental-level Schools as the basic units; it excludes purely instructional units (such as the ELTU), Centres and Institutes.
• Some units are called "School" but sit at departmental level — e.g. the School of Biomedical Sciences and the Nethersole School of Nursing under Medicine, or the School of Life Sciences under Science — and are not "Faculties" in the sense of the eight major faculties.
• Cross-faculty and interdisciplinary units (such as the Zhizhen School of Interdisciplinary Mathematical Sciences and the various research centres) are counted separately and do not contribute to the departmental total.

---

# 10. Structural changes, 2023–2025 at a glance

CUHK's departmental structure is by no means fixed. The four changes flagged in the faculty tables above, read together, trace a clear pattern over the past three years: ageing departments slimmed down and merged; emerging disciplines spun off into their own schools.

The two most watched changes are the restructurings completed by the Faculties of Social Science and Science in 2024 and 2025 respectively:

School of Governance and Policy Science (2024): the 54-year-old Department of Government and Public Administration won the Council's approval for a restructuring plan in February 2024 and was formally absorbed in August of that year into the new School of Governance and Policy Science^※. After the merger, the School's offerings broadened from a single "Government and Public Administration" programme to three streams — Government and Public Administration, Global Studies, and Data Science and Policy Studies — （per HKFP's report）^※.

Zhizhen School of Interdisciplinary Mathematical Sciences (2025): initiated by the mathematician Shing-Tung Yau, the School was announced in February 2025, held its inauguration ceremony on 1 September 2025, and welcomed its first cohort of students the same day（CUHK Communications and Public Relations Office）^※. It offers an integrated eight-year bachelor's–doctoral programme, training future leaders in mathematical sciences in collaboration with Tsinghua University's Qiuzhen College, Fudan University and other institutions. The inaugural cohort numbers 14 students; at full strength the School plans to admit 40 students a year (10 local, 30 non-local)（CUHK in Focus）^※. Because the Zhizhen School recruits and trains across faculties, it falls outside the "about 61 departments" headcount used here; in practice, however, it operates on the teaching staff and facilities of the Department of Mathematics.

Roughly speaking, these four changes fall into two types: department renamings/mergers (Decisions, Operations and Technology; School of Governance and Policy Science; Statistics and Data Science) and a newly created cross-faculty school (Zhizhen). The former are mostly a matter of renaming departments to keep pace with research and admissions directions; the specific drivers differ from department to department, and this article does not attempt a single blanket explanation — it records the institutional facts as the official accounts present them. For background on the School of Governance and Policy Science restructuring, readers may consult the original HKFP report and judge for themselves.

---