The Institute is proud of and committed to its applied research tradition, which emphasises excellence in scholarship, professionalism, service to the community and the workplace through knowledge transfer, and advancing knowledge locally and internationally. Grounded in the “Education-plus” vision, the scope of research undertaken by the Institute has been broadened to encompass Education and related fields in the Humanities, Social Sciences and Creative Arts and Culture.

The wide variety of research conducted by the Institute aims to inform innovation in learning, teaching and curriculum development, as well as to support professional practice, policy formulation and social and human development. Over the past few years, there has been a significant leap in the total number of on-going research projects funded by the Research Grants Council under its General Research Fund (GRF), Public Policy Research (PPR) Fund and Strategic Public Policy Research (SPPR) Fund, as highlighted in the table below.

The Institute has a large number of Research and Development (R&D) projects funded by the Research Grants Council, Education Bureau, Quality Education Fund, Jockey Club, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other external bodies. The number of on-going R&D projects was 225 in 2010-11, with funds amounting to HK$113 million, averaging HK$503,613 per project.

Over the past year, the Institute’s staff continued to focus on projects with high professional and policy impact for the local and regional communities, and on innovative research with international impact. For example, a PPR-funded project on innovative methodology critiqued the common practice of non-hierarchical data analysis in surveys and testing, and devised a new methodology that considered complex hierarchical structures, demonstrated through computerised testing and classification applications. The study will provide public policy makers and researchers with a ready-to-implement, state-of-the-art technique for better data analysis.

With Education at the core of the Institute’s mission, most of our research projects focus on education policy, practice, reform and innovation, or are closely related to the education field. Research topics under Education include: school leadership; creativity and arts assessment in curriculum reform; citizenship; cultural diversity and the learning needs of ethnic minority students in Hong Kong; online research-based inquiry learning; science learning among Chinese school pupils; the psychological well-being and academic performance of adolescents; a comparative study of the changing roles of universities in East Asia; a new assessment methodology; and the impact of voucher schemes on parents’ choice of early childhood education services.

The Institute has rapidly expanded multidisciplinary research under the concept of “Education-plus”. Research projects in the Social Sciences, among others, cover: older persons with cognitive impairment; the reading achievements of Chinese children from different socio-economic backgrounds; dementia and the caregivers of Alzheimer patients; gender and school leadership; China and global warming; socio-spatial embeddings of South Asian ethnic minorities in Hong Kong; and a fear-avoidance model of Chinese patients with chronic pain. A GRF-funded project on social safety nets during economic crises is examining the situations in four middle and high income Asian countries. The first of its kind in Asia, upon completion the project will make a vital contribution to empirical appraisal and theoretical debates on social protection in the region.

Research in the Humanities and Creative Arts and Culture has also made good advances, covering diverse areas in languages, literature, art and cultures. Research topics include: a sentiment analysis of Chinese and English in media texts; word formation in Modern standard Chinese and Early modern Chinese; Tang poetry in the late Ming period; Chinese literary tradition in modern studies of Chinese Literature; the impact of Sanskrit on Chinese language and creating a database of Chinese Buddhist translations to facilitate research into historical Chinese linguistics; Hong Kong living heritage arts and living treasures; children and cultural vitality in Hong Kong; arts events and their role in enhancing an Asian city’s human and creative capital; and understanding the meaning of the stereotyped images of Japanese caricatures created by adolescents in a popular visual culture context.

Scholars at the Institute are increasingly research active, generating important research findings and activities disseminated through publications, scholarly books, monographs, academic journal articles, conference papers, creative and literary works, and consultancy reports. In 2010-11, of the 480 research output items produced by our academics, 37 per cent were related to the various sectors of education – early childhood, primary, secondary, and technical and special education, while 63 per cent were related to teacher education and the discipline areas of language and humanities, social sciences, and creative arts and culture, reflecting the Institute’s strong commitment to relevant and impactful research for education and the broad liberal arts.

The Institute attaches great importance to achieving impactful research and innovative scholarship that not only extends the frontiers of knowledge but also benefits the education sector and the wider community. Knowledge transfer activities are key to this pursuit, such as partnership and development projects, development workshops, seminars and conferences. During the year, 6,942 schools, 81,831 teachers, 755,085 students, and 60,025 parents and stakeholders benefited from these activities.*

At the Institute, we have a critical mass of scholars at the Chair Professor and Professor levels who are academic leaders. Their diverse range of research expertise covers the following fields: Curriculum and Instruction; Education Leadership and Change; Special and Inclusive Education; International, Comparative and Lifelong Education; Assessment and Measurement; Educational and Community Psychology; Applied Linguistics and Language Sciences; Chinese Language and Literature; Governance, Public and Social Policy; Social Research; Environmental and Health Studies; Science Education; and Music and Creative Arts.

Knowledge creation aside, our scholars have displayed a genuine concern for promoting Hong Kong as a civic society. Many of them seek to disseminate their research, scholarship and analysis through media commentaries, public events and community activities. Their works and expressed views very often attract extensive media attention, and become valuable and useful references for policy makers.

The Institute believes that scholars should have an important role to play in intellectual and social enlightenment. Our academic community advances knowledge and scholarship, unleashes new paradigms and perspectives, and advocates policy and curriculum changes, thereby creating impacts not only on education development but also on human betterment and social progress both locally and beyond Hong Kong.

* The total number of beneficiaries has been calculated according to the actual man-times and number of schools involved. Some of them may have been involved in more than one activity.

As at 1 September 2011