China Studies, Social Science Think Tanks, and Earth & Space: The Art Museum, the USC Collection, Opinion Polls and CUHK’s First Satellite

Research at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) extends well beyond the hard sciences conducted in its laboratories. China studies are a founding hallmark of the University, social survey work is the channel through which it contributes to public discourse, and earth observation lifts its gaze from the campus all the way to satellite orbit. This article weaves those three threads — humanities, social science and earth — into a single account: China studies, represented by the Institute of Chinese Studies and the USC collection; the social-science think-tank tradition, represented by the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies and the Quality of Life Index; and earth and space research, represented by the Institute of Space and Earth Information Science and CUHK’s first satellite. All establishment years and unit rosters are based on the latest official announcements.

# Part 1 · China Studies and Archival Collections

China studies are one of CUHK’s founding characteristics, and they run along two lines: humanities research infrastructure represented by the Institute of Chinese Studies, and an archival collection for contemporary China studies represented by the Universities Service Centre (USC) holdings.

# 1. The Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS) and the Art Museum

According to CUHK research materials^※, the Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS) was founded in 1967 at the initiative of the founding Vice-Chancellor, Li Choh-ming, to serve as a platform for international exchange and collaboration in Chinese academic research. In its early years, the Institute was sustained mainly by scholars from the New Asia Institute of Advanced Chinese Studies, covering fields such as history and philosophy (Tang Chun-i among them).

Its subordinate Art Museum was established in 1971. According to a CUHK announcement^※, the Art Museum collects, conserves, researches and exhibits artefacts illuminating the art, humanities and cultural heritage of ancient and early-modern China. In recent years it has added new exhibition galleries (such as the Lo Kwee Seong Pavilion). One of the museum’s most important donations came from the Bei Shan Tang Foundation. As reported in CUHK in Focus^※, the Bei Shan Tang Foundation has over an extended period donated calligraphy, paintings, rubbings, ceramics, jades, bronzes and lacquerware to the Art Museum, including rare Song-dynasty rubbings, greatly enriching the museum’s research and exhibition base in the areas of calligraphy, painting and decorative arts.

# 2. The Universities Service Centre (USC) Collection: An Archive of Contemporary China Studies

The collection of the Universities Service Centre for China Studies (USC) is a major repository of primary and secondary source materials for the study of contemporary China. Citing CUHK sources, Times Higher Education^※ reports that the USC was founded in 1963 and houses about 80,000 volumes as well as extensive collections of rare newspapers, periodicals and local materials, and has long been regarded by overseas scholars as an essential base for contemporary China studies. According to the CUHK Library^※, the USC collection concentrates on China after 1949, with an emphasis on regional and local data; and according to the Library’s LibGuides^※, the holdings cover newspapers, yearbooks (including statistical yearbooks), local gazetteers (方誌) at the provincial, city, county, township and village levels, periodicals, documentary films and census materials. The collection is currently housed on the 8th and 9th floors of the University Library.

Editorial note: The USC underwent organisational restructuring around 2020, a matter that touches on university governance. This volume (devoted to research and archives) records only the established facts about the collection as a research special collection — its founding year, its scale and its current physical location — and does not elaborate on governance narratives.

# 3. Digital Humanities and the Ancient Text Database

The Institute of Chinese Studies also anchors important digital humanities infrastructure. According to the CUHK D. C. Lau Research Centre for Chinese Ancient Texts^※ and related research materials, the Institute launched the CHANT (漢達文庫, CHinese ANcient Texts) database project in 1988. The project brings together transmitted and excavated texts from the pre-Qin period through to the Six Dynasties (roughly 1500 BCE to 600 CE) into a full-text retrieval database. As noted in a relevant academic introduction^※, the database contains over 30 million characters and encompasses excavated materials such as oracle bones, bronze inscriptions, and bamboo and silk manuscripts. The project is carried forward by the Institute’s D. C. Lau (劉殿爵) Research Centre for Chinese Ancient Texts (named in memory of the late scholar). The Institute also publishes the Journal of Chinese Studies (《中國文化研究所學報》) and other scholarly journals and monograph series.

From the Institute of Chinese Studies and the Art Museum in the 1960s to the USC contemporary-China collection, CUHK has accumulated parallel holdings in China studies that span the humanities classics and contemporary social data: the Art Museum focuses on art and cultural artefacts, while the USC collection focuses on post-1949 local and statistical materials. Together they underpin CUHK’s distinctive position in China studies.

# Part 2 · Flagship Social Science Research and Policy Think Tanks

CUHK’s Faculty of Social Science has a long track record in opinion polling, social indicators and policy research. The main thread runs through the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies (HKIAPS), its Telephone Survey Research Laboratory and the Hong Kong Quality of Life Index.

# 4. The Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies (HKIAPS) and the Telephone Survey Laboratory

According to its official introduction^※, HKIAPS was established in September 1990 with the mission of promoting interdisciplinary social science research on social, economic and political development. It houses multiple research units and programmes (such as the Global China Research Programme) and regularly releases public opinion survey results on topics of public interest.

According to HKIAPS materials^※, the Telephone Survey Research Laboratory was established in 1995. It provides professional telephone survey support for researchers and social organisations, is one of Hong Kong’s principal telephone survey units, and serves as the technical foundation for HKIAPS’s opinion polling work. In addition, according to HKIAPS materials^※, HKIAPS launched the “Indicators of Hong Kong Social Development” project as early as 1988; since then it has collected social development data through biennial sample surveys.

# 5. Centre for Communication and Public Opinion Survey (CCPOS)

Beyond HKIAPS, the Centre for Communication and Public Opinion Survey (CCPOS), housed within the School of Journalism and Communication, is another important opinion-research unit at CUHK. According to its official introduction^※, CCPOS was founded in 2004 to provide high-quality research for academia, government, non-profit organisations and commercial clients. Its research focuses on media and society, journalism and democracy, and public attitudes towards press freedom and social issues. According to CCPOS materials^※, the centre uses computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) to conduct random-sample surveys of Cantonese-speaking residents aged 18 or above.

# 6. The Hong Kong Quality of Life Index

The CUHK Hong Kong Quality of Life Index, developed by the Faculty of Social Science, is a composite index that combines both objective and subjective indicators to assess and monitor the quality of life in Hong Kong. According to relevant academic literature^※ and an index document^※, the index uses 2002 as its base year and integrates representative sample surveys with official statistics. As noted in related explanations, from 2014 the number of sub-indices was expanded from three to five (health, social, culture and leisure, economic, and environmental), and the number of indicators from 21 to 23. The index is released at the end of each year, according to a CUHK press release^※.

For the latest releases of all polls and indices, and for any adjustments to sub-indicators, please refer to the most recent versions issued by HKIAPS and CUHK announcements.

# Part 3 · Earth, Space, Ocean and the Environment

CUHK has long invested in remote sensing, earth and space information, and marine and environmental research. The main thread centers on the Institute of Space and Earth Information Science (ISEIS), its satellite ground station, and CUHK’s first satellite.

# 7. The Institute of Space and Earth Information Science (ISEIS) and the Satellite Ground Station

According to the ISEIS official introduction^※, the Institute of Space and Earth Information Science (ISEIS) was established in 2005, building on the foundation of the Joint Laboratory for Geo-Information Science (JLGIS) jointly set up by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and CUHK. The Institute is equipped with a satellite remote-sensing ground receiving station capable of receiving medium- and high-resolution data. According to a CUHK press release^※, the ground station was completed in 2005 with support from the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) of China and the Innovation and Technology Commission (ITC) of the Hong Kong SAR Government. The Fok Ying Tung Remote Sensing Science Building, linked to the ground station, is one of the key satellite remote-sensing research facilities in southern China and is used for natural disaster monitoring, urban environmental assessment and similar purposes. For example, as reported in a CUHK press release^※, ISEIS once revealed through remote sensing analysis that roughly 80% of buildings in the Yushu earthquake had sustained damage.

# 8. CUHK’s First Satellite

According to a CUHK announcement^※, ISEIS collaborated with the Earth Observation System and Data Centre of the China National Space Administration to drive forward CUHK’s first satellite project. As reported in CUHK in Focus^※, the project originated from a research proposal funded by the Innovation and Technology Fund (ITF) in March 2023, “R&D of a CUHK Satellite and Integrated Remote Sensing Technology for Near-real-time Landslide Monitoring.” It is the first earth-observation satellite project funded by the Hong Kong government. The satellite was launched on 24 September from Shandong aboard a Smart Dragon-3 rocket, and will serve research on natural disaster monitoring, carbon neutrality, sustainable development and related fields.

# 9. Marine and Environmental Research

The Simon F. S. Li Marine Science Laboratory (李福善海洋科學研究中心), according to its official website^※, pursues research spanning ecology, evolution, conservation, genomics, ecotoxicology and biotechnology, with study organisms ranging from marine microbes to eukaryotes, and a particular focus on corals, algae and crustaceans. Mangrove ecology is one of its signature areas: according to relevant research coverage^※, a team working in this direction found that the conversion factors previously used to estimate mangrove carbon stocks were biased; after correction, mangrove carbon stocks were shown to have been underestimated by about 23%, highlighting the role of mangroves in carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation. CUHK also houses other institutes and centres focused on the environment, energy and carbon neutrality, creating intersections with these marine and earth-science directions.

Editorial note: For the most up-to-date rosters of teams and outputs in the marine and environmental fields, please refer to the relevant CUHK official pages.

Further reading: Survey of Research Achievements, State Key Laboratories, Agricultural Biotechnology, Research Output and Spin-off Companies.