Lingnan University, Asia Pacific Higher Education Research Partnership (APHERP) and IAFOR co-hosted the Conference for Higher Education Research Hong Kong 2018 from 19 to 21 October 2018 at Lingnan University. The theme of the Conference was “Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Value”.
Six keynote and featured speakers, together with around 60 paper presenters from 19 countries/regions across Europe, USA, Australia, Middle East and Asia, joined the CHER-Hong Kong 2018 event. Postgraduate students from Lingnan University and education professionals from the University of Southern California’s Global Executive EdD programme, invited guests and academics from other higher education institutions in Hong Kong also participated in the Conference. CHER-Hong Kong 2018 was the first conference being held at Lingnan University after the Secretariat of Asia Pacific Higher Education Research Partnership (an Inter-University Research Consortium for Higher Education originally based in East-West Center in the USA) officially moved to Lingnan University. To celebrate deeper collaboration of APHERP with Asian partners, a special unveiling ceremony was held.
Professor Leonard K Cheng, President of Lingnan University, one of the keynote speakers shed light on “Innovation and Entrepreneurship at a Liberal Arts University? The Experience of Lingnan University.” He discussed how innovation and entrepreneurship provides a base for development at liberal arts universities by sharing the experience of Lingnan University. The university has successfully embraced both innovation and entrepreneurship through the Lingnan Entrepreneurship Initiative which is supported by core faculty units, office of service learning, student services center and across research institutes and study programmes.
Professor Anthony Welch, Professor of Education, Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney, another leading keynote speaker shared his research on “Innovation, Entrepreneurship and its shift to the East”. Historically, the so-called scientific revolution, innovation has largely been associated with the West until recently where the rise of scientific innovation is coming from the East and South East Asia. He explained about how the West is under-investing in higher education and research, disadvantaging itself in nurturing future talent whilst the east is investing in these areas in a race to become world-class universities, hence concluding the global war for talent is tilting to the East
Other featured speakers included Professor Catherine Montgomery from University of Bath, Professor Yuto Kitamura from The University of Tokyo, Professor Deane Neubauer from East-West Centre, USA, and Dr Xu Di from University of Hawaii-Mānoa amongst many others who made the discussions even more enriching.
The Conference was successfully held with diverse views and experiences shared by different stakeholders from governments, universities, industries, businesses and the community at large on the role of innovation and entrepreneurship in shaping nations to excel in the complex global environment. The platform served to be very fruitful in exploring new strategies and measures in support of innovation-centric environment promoting university-industry-business-government and society collaborations which met the core objective of this Conference.