The long-awaited results of the Research Assessment Exercise 2020 are out! The Faculty of Construction and Environment (FCE) is pleased that its submissions to the panel of Built Environment have been favorably assessed by the University Grants Committee (UGC) according to their research outputs, impact, and environment. The FCE submissions were assessed under two Units of Assessment (UoA) , namely (i) civil engineering (including construction engineering and management) and building technology, as well as (ii) planning and surveying (land and other). 

Overall, 73% of the research by FCE’s 91 eligible staff were deemed “world-leading” (4*) or “internationally excellent” (3*), compared to the sector-wide average of 71%. Among the UGC-funded universities in this field, PolyU is within the top three. In particular, 93% of our research environment and 83% of our research impact were rated “world-leading” (4*) or “internationally excellent” (3*), higher than the respective sector-wide averages of 70% and 74%. 

With respect to the two UoAs, FCE achieved 75% of 4* and 3* ratings in research outputs in the UoA of planning and surveying (land and other). Its research impact and environment with these ratings in the same UoA were 50% and 85% respectively. In the UoA of civil engineering and building technology, the research outputs of FCE rated 4* and 3* were 65%, while 100% of its research impact and environment achieved these high ratings.

In the ShanghaiRanking’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2021, PolyU jumped from 14^th last year to 5^th place for the subject of civil engineering, which is a major offering of the Faculty of Construction of Environment (FCE). Locally, it is in first place. 

Also known as Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), the ShanghaiRanking uses a range of objective academic indicators and third-party data, including international academic awards, top academic achievements, research quality, and international collaboration, to measure the performance of world universities in 54 subjects.

The Areas of Excellence Committee (AoEC) of PolyU has recently approved funding to support the purchase of two pieces of large equipment for research. One is for Prof. Tao Yu of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) to purchase a fabrication platform for smart fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites at a cost of $3,050,700. The main component of the platform is a custom-made pultrusion machine which allows the shape, lamination structure and raw materials of FRP to be optimized for specific applications. This machine will provide new opportunities for the project team to conduct innovative multidisciplinary research on novel composite materials and structures. 

 The other is for Prof. Xiaoli Ding of the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics (LSGI) to purchase hardware for a mobile mapping system at a cost of $2,200,000. Capable of conducting fast surveys by accelerating data collection for various applications, the system will enhance research on intelligent transportation systems, location-based services, urban positioning infrastructure, smart city solutions, indoor and outdoor navigation etc. 

In addition, the committee also supported the purchase of the following 7 large equipment proposals for teaching, including:

The Faculty of Construction and Environment (FCE) has a range of Dean’s Awards to reward its academic staff. Based on their success in securing external competitive research funding in the last few years, 9 of its academics have been selected for the Dean’s Award for Outstanding Achievement in Research Funding 2021. Following are the details:

In addition, Prof. Daniel Tsang of CEE was chosen for the Dean’s Award for Highly-cited Researcher 2021 for having produced multiple highly-cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for his field and being on the Web of Science’s 2020 Highly Cited Researcher List.

A team led by Prof. Charles Wong of LSGI also received the Dean’s Award for Outstanding Achievement in Technology Transfer 2021 for their Remote Sensing on Urban Trees. Remote sensing technology is essential to facilitate urban tree planning and management, providing an accurate method for measuring biophysical dimensions and structural attributes of massive vegetative patches. Advanced remote sensing techniques can also identify species, measure physical parameters, detect structural defects and monitor the health of urban trees spatially and temporally.

The newly established Dean’s Awards for Outstanding Young Researchers 2020 were given to Dr Minchen Wei of BSE and Dr Huan-feng Duan of CEE for their overall achievements in research and scholarly activities.

At the 12^th China Satellite Navigation Conference (CSNC) in Nanchang, China, in late May 2021, a PhD student of the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics (LSGI), Yangzhao Gong, received a Young Author Best Paper Award. Co-authored with his former supervisor Prof. George Liu and staff from the Hong Kong Observatory, Mr Pak Wai Chan and Mr Kai Kwong Hon, the winning paper was entitled “Augmenting GNSS PPP Accuracy in South China Using Water Vapor Correction Data from WRF Assimilation Results,” in which atmospheric water vapor data were remotely sensed by a network of GNSS ground receivers and then assimilated into the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model (a widely used numerical weather prediction model). The water vapor data forecast by the WRF model were then utilized to correct the atmospheric errors in the GNSS observations. The test results in the South China region showed that the accuracy of GNSS positioning and navigation solution can be improved by 25% to 35% in static mode and 15% to 26% in kinematic mode.

Hosted annually by the Academic Exchange Center of the China Satellite Navigation Office, the CSNC is the largest international conference in the world in the field of global navigation satellite system (GNSS). More than 5000 GNSS-related researchers participated in the CSNC conference in 2021.

Ir Prof. Michael Yam has been appointed the Head of the Department of Building and Real Estate (BRE) with effect from 1 July 2021. He obtained his PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Alberta in Canada. Since 2002, he has been an academic at PolyU teaching and researching building/ structural engineering, with a focus on the experimental and numerical investigation of steel members and connections. He is currently the Deputy Director and Executive Secretary of the Chinese National Engineering Research Centre for Steel Construction (Hong Kong Branch) as well as the Deputy Chairman of the Building Discipline Advisory Panel of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (HKIE). Prof. Yam is a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, HKIE, and The Hong Kong Institute of Construction Managers.

The Faculty of Construction and Environment (FCE) is pleased that the following academics have been promoted.

Promotions to Chair Professor
	Prof. Asif Usmani of the Department of Building Services Engineering (BSE) has been promoted to Chair Professor of Building Sciences and Fire Safety Engineering. Before joining PolyU in August 2016, he led civil engineering research and teaching in the UK, spending most of his career at the University of Edinburgh. His main research is simulating thermo-mechanical behaviour of structures in fire and developing methodologies for performance based fire safety engineering. At PolyU, he has expanded into AI and other emerging technologies for smart firefighting in dense urban environments. He currently leads an HK$33.333 million research project in this area funded by the RGC Theme-based Research Scheme.
	Prof. Ben Young of CEE has been promoted to Chair Professor of Steel Structures. He received his PhD degree from the University of Sydney in Australia. A co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Constructional Steel Research, Prof. Young has published over 600 international journal and conference papers. Currently a Vice President (Student and International Affairs) at PolyU, his research interests include cold-formed steel structures, high strength steel structures, stainless steel structures, aluminium structures and fire resistance of metal structures. He received the Shortridge Hardesty Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2020.
Promotions to Professor
	Prof. Daniel Tsang of CEE has been promoted from Associate Professor to Professor. He had been Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Queensland in Australia, IMETE Visiting Scholar at Ghent University in Belgium, and Visiting Scholar at Stanford University in the US. His research strives to develop innovative solutions to promote circular economy, carbon neutrality, and sustainable engineering. He has published over 450 research papers in top 10% journals and served as an associate editor and editorial board member of several prestigious journals. He was one of the highly cited researchers in the academic field of environment and ecology in 2020.
	Prof. Charles Wong of LSGI has been promoted from Associate Professor to Professor. Since receiving his PhD in Remote Sensing and GIS from PolyU, he has made numerous significant contributions and achievements in research and teaching. He has led the Jockey Club Smart City Tree Management Project which was funded by $32.28 million from the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust. The Smart Monitoring System for Urban Tree Management that he developed received a Gold Medal Award from the Special Edition 2021 Inventions Geneva Evaluation Days, and Smart 50 Awards from the Smart Cities Connect.
Promotions to Associate Professor
	Dr Joonoh Seo of the Department of Building and Real Estate (BRE) has been promoted to Associate Professor. He joined PolyU as an assistant professor in 2016. He obtained his PhD degree in Civil Engineering (construction management programme) from the University of Michigan in the United States. He has been studying issues related to construction workers’ productivity, safety and health through experimental studies and diverse IT-based approaches (e.g., computer vision, machine learning, simulation, wearable sensors, Augmented/Virtual Reality), and publishing a number of articles in the domains of construction engineering and management, computing, ergonomics and safety science. He was awarded the FCE Dean’s Award for Outstanding Achievement in Research Funding in 2020.
	Dr Ivy Wong (BRE) has been promoted to Associate Professor. She received her PhD in Planning (2014) from the University of British Columbia. A professional member of both the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and the Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors (HKIS), Dr Wong focuses her academic research on urban-rural planning and governance. She is the founder and convener of the China Innovative Urban-rural Governance (CIURG) Research Network, which provides a platform to support intellectual debates and research collaboration in urbanization and local governance. Her research findings have been widely published in top international academic journals, such as the International Journal of Urban & Regional Research, China Quarterly, Urban Studies etc.
	Dr Siu Kai Lai of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) has been promoted to Associate Professor. He has BEng and PhD degrees from the City University of Hong Kong. His research interests are in structural dynamics, smart materials and structures, and energy harvesting techniques. Professionally, Dr Lai is a registered professional engineer in Hong Kong and Australia, and a chartered engineer of the Engineering Council (UK) and Engineers Australia. He is also a member of HKIE (in both Fire and Mechanical Disciplines). Hitherto, he has published more than 70 refereed journal papers and 30 conference papers in structural and mechanical engineering fields.
	Dr Robert Tenzer of the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics (LSGI) has been promoted to Associate Professor. Since receiving his MSc and PhD degrees from the Slovak Technical University and a second PhD from the Czech Technical University, he has worked at the University of New Brunswick, the University of Newcastle, Delft University of Technology, the University of Otago, and Wuhan University. His research interests cover the broad areas of geodesy, geophysics and planetary science, with a focus on the development of mathematical models. He is the author of 4 books and more than 200 research articles.

A team of students from the Department of Building Services Engineering (BSE) has received a Merit Award in the category of Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering at the 7th Hong Kong University Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition. Entitled “Performance Analysis of Bifacial Solar PV module and its Application in Hong Kong,” the winning project was by Ms Tak Lam Hung, Mr Chun Kuen Leung and Ms Nico Lam. They were supervised by Prof. Lin Lu of BSE.

Co-organized by the Hong Kong New Generation Cultural Association and the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation, the competition was supported by the Innovation and Technology Commission of the Hong Kong Government.

The project team

The Postgraduate Scheme in Construction and Environment provides scholarships to outstanding applicants admitted to its taught MSc programmes. For 2021/22, 11 scholarships covering the tuition fees were given to the following applicants:

Dept	MSc Programme	Student
BRE	MSc in Construction and Real Estate	Ho Ki Wong
	MSc in Construction Law and Dispute Resolution	Wing Chuen Chiu
	MSc in Project Management	Mohamed Assaf
	MSc in Project Management	Hoi Ki Lee
BSE	MSc in Building Services Engineering	Chun On Chan
	MSc in Building Services Engineering	Lok Tong Leong
	MSc in Facility Management	Mei Suet Hui
	MSc in Facility Management	To Kin Lam
CEE	MSc in Environmental Management and Engineering	Siu Fung Fung
LSGI	MSc in Geomatics (GIS)	Hoi Hei Kong
	MSc in Urban Informatics and Smart Cities	Hoi Wai Edwin Lai