A delegation of senior academics from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) led by Professor Steven Ngai (Departmental Chairperson) from the Department of Social Work, made an important visit to colleagues this month in the School for Policy Studies (SPS), University of Bristol (UoB). Detailed discussions took place to further build and strengthen their existing research and postgraduate teaching collaborations.
WUN research meetings and its Researcher Mobility Programme (RMP) have proved crucial for developing this successful research and teaching partnership. The two departments have collaborated over many years on issues concerning health and poverty measurement and alleviation in Hong Kong. Senior staff at CUHK kindly helped and advised their Bristol colleagues working on an ESRC/Hong Kong RGC bilateral grant on Poverty and Social Exclusion in Hong Kong and discussions at the WUN conference and annual meeting in Shanghai in 2011 resulted in a successful Strategic Public Policy Research bid on Trends and Implications of Poverty and Social Disadvantages in Hong Kong: A Multi-disciplinary and Longitudinal Study. This is a multi-institution, inter-disciplinary longitudinal study consisting of three main research streams which aim to:
- measure the extent and nature of poverty, deprivation and exclusion in Hong Kong and the effectiveness of current policy initiatives in tackling poverty;
- investigate the impacts of poverty, inequality and social disadvantages on young people’s health and wellbeing; and
- understand the interaction between poverty and health inequalities.
Several research visits have been supported by the UoB-CUHK PhD Student and Staff Exchange Programme (initiated in 2012) and facilitated under WUN’s Research Mobility Programme:
- September 2012 to April 2013 – PhD Student Exchange Programme visits of Ms. Vera Mun-yu Tang (CUHK) and Ms. Di Qi (Bristol) resulted in a joint paper “Social Assistance Programs and Child Poverty Alleviation — A Comparison Between Hong Kong and Mainland China”, which was published in a special issue of the Journal of Asian Social Work and Policy Review.
- March 2013 – Dr Roger Chung’s (CUHK) visit to Bristol’s School for Policy Studies helped to foster stronger ties between faculty members of CUHK and the University of Bristol and strengthened collaborations in health inequalities research.
- Ms. YUAN Rui and Ms. LIU Ying have also benefited from their PhD Student Exchange Programme visits to the University of Bristol.
One significant outcome of the collaboration between CUHK’s Department of Social Work and Bristol’s School for Policy Studies will be the publication (in December 2016) by the Chinese University Press of Poverty in a Rich Society, an edited book which includes the results of some of this multi-disciplinary collaborative international research.
[Pictured are (r-l): Kim Min-Seop; Raees Begum Baig; Chang Ching-Wen; Steven Ngai; Joyce Ma Lai-Chong; Alan Emond; Christina Pantazis; Patricia Kennett; Geraldine Macdonald; Lam Ching-Man; Wong Yu-Cheung]
