In a year of record rankings, awards and firsts, Lingnan’s achievements remind the world that Hong Kong still produces academic excellence
A Historic Milestone in Global Education
In a year when headlines from Hong Kong have too often been dominated by political restrictions, emigration figures, and civil society erosion, Lingnan University delivered a remarkable counter-narrative in 2025: it became the first higher education institution in Hong Kong — and indeed across Asia — to rank number one in the world in any United Nations Sustainable Development Goal category. The category was SDG 4: Quality Education, as assessed in the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings 2025. In a field of 2,526 institutions from around the world, Lingnan stood at the top.
What the Rankings Actually Measure
The Times Higher Education Impact Rankings assess universities not by research citations alone, but by their real-world contributions to the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. SDG 4 covers quality, inclusive, and lifelong education. Lingnan’s first-place finish reflects its record on accessible learning, community engagement, knowledge transfer, and pedagogical innovation — areas where many elite universities, preoccupied with research metrics, fall short. Lingnan also ranked first among Hong Kong’s eight publicly funded universities for “Undergraduate satisfaction with the quality and value gained from their teaching and learning experience,” as assessed by the University Grants Committee under its University Accountability Agreement for the 2022 to 2025 triennium.
A String of Hong Kong SAR Firsts and Onlys
The SDG ranking was not the only landmark. Across 2025, Lingnan compiled an impressive collection of Hong Kong firsts and onlys. The university ranked first among publicly funded Hong Kong institutions for student engagement in startups and entrepreneurship, and recorded the highest growth rate in Band A JUPAS applications — the competitive university admissions system — at 38.37 percent, outstripping every other institution in the SAR. One of its undergraduate programmes, the Bachelor of Social Sciences in Health and Social Services Management, recorded a 51 to 1 application ratio, making it the most competitive single programme in Hong Kong. At the 11th Silicon Valley International Inventions Festival, Lingnan won 14 medals — the most of any Hong Kong institution at the event. A Lingnan professor received the 2025 H. George Frederickson Award for Career Contributions to Public Management Research from the Public Management Research Association, the only scholar at a Hong Kong higher education institution to receive the honour. The university also became the first higher education institution in Asia to establish a United Nations University Hub on Humanitarian Innovation and Technology.
Lingnan’s Roots: Born From Resistance to Authoritarian Rule
There is a history here worth understanding. Lingnan University’s lineage stretches back to 1888, when it was founded in Canton by the American Presbyterian Mission. It survived the Qing dynasty’s repressive measures by relocating to Macau in 1900. When the Chinese Communist Party took power in 1949 and absorbed Lingnan into what is now Sun Yat-sen University, a group of its members who had fled to Hong Kong founded Lingnan College in 1967 to preserve the university’s spirit in exile. That institution became Lingnan University in 1999. The university’s identity — as an internationally oriented, liberal arts institution forged partly in resistance to authoritarian disruption — gives its 2025 achievements an additional resonance. In 2021, Lingnan removed a Tiananmen memorial sculpture from its campus under pressure, joining other Hong Kong universities in a painful capitulation to the post-National Security Law environment. That decision attracted criticism from democracy advocates. Yet academically, the university has continued to demonstrate that Hong Kong’s educational institutions can achieve global distinction when allowed to pursue intellectual excellence.
Innovation and Access as Core Values
Under President S. Joe Qin, Lingnan has pursued a deliberately forward-looking agenda. The university was among the first in Hong Kong to provide campus-wide free access to generative AI tools including ChatGPT and, more recently, DeepSeek, embedding these capabilities into teaching and research workflows. It introduced a compulsory first-year course on generative AI, equipping students with the technical literacy, critical thinking, and ethical frameworks needed for an AI-shaped workforce. The university has also launched the Lingnan-60 Global Talent Recruitment initiative, aiming to attract 60 world-class scholars to strengthen its faculty. The Lingnan University Institute for Advanced Study (LUIAS) has been established as a hub for interdisciplinary research with an international collaborative focus.
Hong Kong Can Still Lead — If It Is Allowed To
Lingnan’s 2025 achievements carry a broader message for Hong Kong. For those who care about the city’s long-term role as a genuinely international, open society, the university’s global leadership in quality education is a reminder that Hong Kong’s civil institutions — its universities, its courts, its free press traditions — are the bedrock of its international value. Undermining them, as Beijing’s policies have progressively done since 2020, does not just harm Hong Kong’s residents. It diminishes one of Asia’s most productive engines of education, research, and innovation. For authoritative context on university rankings, see the Times Higher Education world rankings. For the UN framework underpinning the SDG assessments, see the UN SDG 4 official page. Lingnan’s own research output and community initiatives are documented at the university’s official site, and the broader landscape of Hong Kong higher education is tracked by the University Grants Committee.
Senior Journalist & Editor, Apple Daily UK
Contact: athena.lai@appledaily.uk
Athena Lai is a senior journalist and editor with extensive experience in Chinese-language investigative reporting and editorial leadership. Educated at a leading journalism school in the United Kingdom, Athena received formal training in fact-checking methodology, editorial governance, and international media standards, grounding her work in globally recognized best practices.
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