7 Cited 14,000 times 16papers Top paper COVID-19 related papers Cited more than 1,000 times 1 According to Google Scholar. Data retrieved November 7, 2021. Dr Maria Zhu Huachen (Public Health) won the 16th National Young Woman Scientist Award (中國 青年女科學家獎) for her work in emerging infectious diseases, especially steering the establishment of the Shantou University-HKU Joint Virology Laboratory with her mentor Guan Yi. Professor Chen Honglin (Microbiology) led his team to win a Gold Award with Congratulations of the Jury at the 2021 Inventions Geneva Evaluation Days for their work on an intranasal influenza virus-backboned COVID vaccine that will hopefully become a useful next-generation option as we transition from pandemic to endemic. Professor Jin Dong-yan (Biomedical Sciences) , Dr Vincent Lui ( Surgery ) and Professor Leo Poon (Public Health) won three out of the four health-related Theme-based Research Scheme projects awarded by the Research Grants Council this year. Of course our colleagues continue to make important contributions to the ongoing pandemic control effort, locally, nationally and globally. One yardstick, amongst many others, would be the number of citations already accrued of our COVID-19 related papers. HKUMed has produced 16 papers that have already attracted at least 1,000 citations each, with the top paper alone having been cited 14,000 times to date1. On the topic of citations, four days ago, Clarivate Analytics announced that a record 17 colleagues attained the coveted “Highly Cited Researcher” or HCR status. HCR is determined by production of multiple highly cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year in Web of Science. HKUMed’s proportion made up more than half of the University’s total 31 researchers so honoured. This has lifted HKU to being included amongst the top 50 schools worldwide in terms of number of researchers judged as HCR. You will find a full list of notable achievements during the past academic year at the end of the printed Address. Notwithstanding these impressive statistics and reputational accolades, I keep revisiting a few questions that go to the very heart of our raison d’être. Would assembling an ever larger contingent of people with high h-indices who have already garnered international recognition be a sufficient, or even desirable, aim for a medical school? Or perhaps we could more single-mindedly coach and cajole our own towards the same research metrics-driven goals? If still not entirely satisfactory, what else is missing from the definition of rich human capital?
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