
Prof Naubahar SHARIF
Professor of Public Policy
Contact Info
Professor Naubahar Sharif is Head of the Department of Social Sciences and Policy Studies (SSPS) at The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK). He worked at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) for 20 years before joining EdUHK, serving as Head of the Division of Public Policy from 2021 to 2025.
His research focuses on the history and development of Hong Kong’s innovation system and on science, technology, and innovation policy in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area. More recently, his work has expanded to the Belt and Road Initiative and to mental health and wellbeing in Hong Kong.
He has published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. His work appears in leading Q1-ranked journals, including Research Policy, Science and Public Policy, The China Journal, and Science, Technology, & Human Values. From 2006 to 2010, he served as a consultant to the Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Commission. His research was selected as one of HKUST’s few sole-authored impact case studies for the 2020 and 2025 Research Assessment Exercises.
Professor Sharif has secured multiple competitive research grants, including Public Policy Research and General Research Fund awards from Hong Kong’s Research Grants Council (RGC). He has served as co–principal investigator on an RGC cross-institutional Collaborative Research Fund (CRF) project and on two Strategic Public Policy Research projects funded by the Policy Innovation and Coordination Office. Between 2021 and 2023, he was awarded HK$27 million as principal investigator for mental health–related research and community initiatives, including HK$14 million from the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust under the Chief Executive’s Community Project List.
At HKUST, his course received an honorary mention in the 2022 Common Core Excellence Award, placing among the top two courses evaluated. He has also received multiple teaching awards, including the Interdisciplinary Programs Office (now the Academy of Interdisciplinary Studies) Teaching Excellence Award (2020) and the School of Humanities and Social Science Best Teacher Award (2009 and 2016).
Professor Sharif is active in public service. In May 2024, he was appointed to the Research Strategy Expert Group under the Chief Executive’s Policy Unit of the HKSAR Government, a high-level advisory body shaping long-term policy priorities. He also served on the Advisory Committee on Mental Health (2017–2025) and the Mental Health Review Tribunal (2019–2025). Additionally, he is a Senior Advisor to The Joseph Needham Foundation for Science & Civilisation (Hong Kong) and an honorary Distinguished Research Fellow at a private independent school in Hong Kong.
He contributes opinion pieces to local newspapers, including China Daily (Hong Kong Edition) and the South China Morning Post, and is frequently featured in local print and television media.