Professor Christina Wong
SFT is thrilled to announce that Professor Christina Wong is an awardee of the highly competitive RGC Senior Research Fellow Scheme (SRFS) 2024/25 offered by the Research Grants Council (RGC) for excellence in research on the circular economy for global sustainable production and consumption. This year, the RGC selected 10 nominees among 38 nominations for the SRFS awards.
Professor Wong has been conferred the title "RGC Senior Research Fellow" and PolyU will receive a fellowship grant of around HK$8 million for her 5-year research project titled “Beyond Regulatory Exertion: Circular Economy Governance, and its Institutionalization and Performance Impacts”.
The circular economy represents a model of production and consumption in which products and materials are cycled back into the economy until the end of their useful life, thereby reducing global material extraction. However, only 7.2% of global resources that enter the market are recovered and recycled annually, according to the Circularity Gap Report published at the World Economic Forum in 2023.
Despite government efforts in setting action plans and policies on the circular economy, collective industrial efforts are essential for monitoring and controlling waste and resource efficiency. Considering the knowledge gap on circular economy governance and its benefits, the research addresses this challenge by demonstrating how different business conditions affect governance performance in the circular economy, and subsequently driving the establishment of circular economy governance.
Professor Wong said, “Receiving this funding award greatly contributes to my research work on sustainable goals for responsible consumption and production. The exceptional capacity of PolyU, and its academic and research expertise, specialised facilities, and interdisciplinary resources have extensively supported our research, thus empowering us to generate profound societal impacts.”
The RGC SRFS aims to provide sustained support and relief from teaching and administrative duties to exceptionally outstanding researchers at the Associate Professor rank (or full Professor rank) of UGC-funded universities in Hong Kong, with the view to facilitate their full dedication to research and development and help universities attract and retain research talent.
