The Faculty of Arts was rated the best among Hong Kong’s eight UGC-funded institutions in the two broad areas in which its research submissions were assessed in the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2014.

49% of the Faculty’s research submissions in the area of ‘Humanities’ and 63% in the area of ‘Creative Arts, Performing Arts & Design’ were rated as ‘world leading’ (4 stars) or ‘internationally excellent’ (3 stars).

The Faculty’s research return was organized into nine disciplines (‘cost centres’): Chinese Language & Literature, English Language & Literature, History, Area Studies, Philosophy & Religious Studies, Linguistics & Language Studies, Cultural Studies, Visual Arts, and Music.

Of these nine disciplinary units, the Faculty was top-rated in eight as evidenced by the percentage of their research activity meeting the standard of ‘world leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’.

Within HKU, the Faculty’s results look just as impressive. In terms of percentage of 4 star ratings, Arts has 6 disciplines in the top 20. In terms of percentage of 4 star and 3 star ratings combined, Arts has 5 disciplines in the top 20.

Commenting on the results, Professor Adam Jaworski, Associate Dean for Research, stated, “This extraordinary achievement marks us out as a leader in the Arts and Humanities, and confirms the high international reputation of our work. We are an extremely ambitious and innovative Faculty and we are not afraid to set challenging goals.”

Professor Douglas Kerr, Dean of Arts, added, “These results are a vindication of all the hard work done by colleagues in the Faculty over recent years, and confirm our scholarly pre-eminence in Hong Kong and the value of our contribution to HKU and to Hong Kong. It is part of a very clear strategic vision for the Faculty to continually see our reputation rise globally and we aspire to an even stronger academic performance in the future.”