PolyU Scientist Dr Ren Jingzheng Wins the 2022 APEC Science Prize for Innovation, Research and Education

Dr Ren Jingzheng, Associate Professor of the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), has been selected as the only winner of the 2022 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Science Prize for Innovation, Research and Education (ASPIRE Prize), in recognition of his scientific contribution commitment to excellence in scientific research and spirit of cooperation with scientists from other APEC member economies under the 2022 ASPIRE Prize theme of “Innovation to achieve economic, environmental, and social goals”.

PolyU is the only higher education institution in Hong Kong to have had two young scientists honoured with this prestigious award in a decade.

Prof Christopher Chao, Vice President (Research and Innovation), congratulated Dr Ren and remarked, “PolyU is dedicated to conducting cutting-edge research to achieve sustainable development. As a member of PolyU’s Research Centre for Resources Engineering towards Carbon Neutrality, Dr Ren has greatly contributed to sustainability through his influential research, promoting the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. We are proud of our young scholars who are pioneering and applying innovative solutions to bring advancement to society, the Asia Pacific, and the world.”

Dr Ren stood out among the 13 remarkable nominees this year and was well recognised by the APEC Policy Partnership on Science, Technology, and Innovation (PPSTI) representatives. The award ceremony was held on 21 August in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Dr Ren mainly focuses on waste-to-energy, circular economy, industrial ecology, and process systems engineering. As the originator of “sustainability-oriented decision-making and optimisation” that simultaneously considers economic, environmental and social goals, multiple research outcomes from him and his team have attracted the attention and interest of academics and industries and have been applied in various fields, such as sustainable design and optimisation of complex industrial systems, energy conservation and emissions mitigation of the wastewater treatment processes, valorisation of medical waste and sewage sludge, and converting agricultural waste into energy or value-added products.

“It is my great honour to win this prize. I appreciate the support of my colleagues, my department and PolyU. This good news heartened me, and I know I should insist on what I am working on-using systems thinking to solve energy and environmental problems in industrial systems and using innovative ways to achieve economic, environmental and social sustainability simultaneously.” Dr Ren said.

Besides the broad collaborations with scientists from other APEC member economies, he also plans to promote the new concept proposed by him, “scientific decision-making for the colocalisation of the complex industrial system”, and the waste-to-energy processes to energy-intensive industries and waste recycling industry of APEC member economies for a more sustainable future, as well as helping to achieve a successful transition to the Bio-Circular-Green economy.

Dr Ren talked about his future target, “I am more enthusiastic about combining “hard technologies” with “soft science” organically to innovatively break through the limitations of the traditional thinking of industry, namely developing carbon-neutral and zero-waste oriented multi-scale global decision-making methodology to promote achieving zero carbon emission and 100% waste recycling in industrial systems.”

Outstanding academic performance is one of the requirements. Dr Ren has published more than 180 journal papers, authored a book, and eleven of his papers have been rated as the ESI top 1% highly cited papers. After joining PolyU, he was ranked in the World’s Top 2% Scientists on Stanford University List in both 2020 and 2021.

The ASPIRE Prize is an annual award which recognises young scientists who are under the age of 40 and have demonstrated a commitment to both excellence in scientific research, as evidenced by scholarly publication, and cooperation with scientists from other APEC member economies, including inclusive and interdisciplinary collaborations.