Two PolyU projects secure UGC’s COVID-19 research funding

The funding results of the One-off Collaborative Research Fund (CRF) 2020/21 and One-off CRF COVID-19 and Novel Infectious Disease Exercise (One-off CRF exercise) allocated by the University Grants Committee (UGC) and Research Grants Council (RGC) was released recently. 27 COVID-19 related collaborative research projects led by various local universities will share an additional HK$150 million. Among them, two projects coordinated by PolyU have secured about HK$13 million in total.

One of the PolyU projects, multi-level synergistic COVID-19 point-of-care diagnostics based on upconversion luminescence biosensing platform, will receive a funding of over HK$8.4 million. Led by Professor Hao Jianhua, Associate Head and Professor of Department of Applied Physics, the project aims to provide multi-level synergistic diagnostics platform and reflect full spectrum of infected patients’ information for point-of-care diagnostics, which could help avoid false-positive or false-negative results.

Another project Effective Ventilation Strategies for Mitigating Infection Risks in Hospitals, led by Dr Mui Kwok-wai Horace, Associate Head and Associate Professor of Department of Building Services Engineering, is allocated a funding of over HK$4.4 million. The project aims to evaluate the infection risk of various ventilation strategies in hospitals with the aid of computational modelling.

The One-off CRF was launched last year in view of the COVID-19 outbreak. The University of Hong Kong and City University share the funding with 15 and four projects respectively, while the Chinese University, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the Baptist University and the Education University have one to two projects each.

Details of Collaborative Research Fund (CRF) 2020/21 and One-off CRF Covid-19 and Novel Infectious Diseases Research Exercises (One-off CRF exercise) Funding Results | 協作研究金: 2020/21 年度撥款結果