Talent Wins the Future: Can Hong Kong Lead?

A society’s future depends on its talent in science and education. Professor Omar Yaghi, last year's Nobel Chemistry laureate, has just resigned from UC Berkeley to join Tsinghua University full-time. He will lead a research institute using AI to accelerate new materials development.

Professor Yaghi trades Berkeley for Tsinghua. (Online news photo)

His move is not an isolated case. Amid America's anti-immigration policies and research funding cuts, the US is losing scientists at its fastest pace in the last 10 years. More and more of them are turning to the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong as academic havens.

Today, China and the US have different policies on science, education and nurturing talent. It offers real lessons for how Hong Kong should build its innovation economy and attract talent today.

The Tide of Talent Flowing East

After World War Two, the US brought in Europe's top scientists, including Einstein and Fermi. Washington hoped technology would boost its global competitiveness and cement its dominance.

Over the following decades, America became known for open immigration, abundant research funding, and a free academic climate. Its Ivy League schools drew students from around the world, forming a self-sustaining talent pipeline that let the US lead the globe in military, technology and medicine throughout the 20th century.

Today the picture looks very different. The Trump administration has slashed funding for research institutions, citing national security and fiscal savings. It has also restricted collaboration with research bodies in China, Russia and elsewhere. Stanford and Harvard have fallen into fiscal deficits and layoff crises as a result.

Admissions policy has tightened just as sharply. The government has raised visa thresholds, capped the percentage of international students some universities may enroll, and even revoked student visas outright. In July this year, the Department of Homeland Security shortened the maximum single-visit visa stay for international students and visiting scholars to under four years. It also cut the post-graduation departure grace period to just 30 days, making it far harder for overseas talent to stay.

These measures place political interests and ideology above respect for science and talent. The direct result is an exodus. Professor Charles Lieber, a leading figure in international nanotechnology, has also left the US to join Tsinghua University full-time. Astrophysicist Professor Bing Zhang and mathematician Professor Hà Văn Vũ have chosen the University of Hong Kong instead, while Fields Medal winner Ngô Bảo Châu joined HKU just last month.

Professor Ngô Bảo Châu picks HKU. (HKU photo)

Such cases are piling up, and more are yet to come.

China's Long Game on Science and Education

China's rise as a haven for top scientists is no accident. It reflects thirty years of steady work implementing the national strategy to "rejuvenate the nation through science and education." In the 1990s, facing intensifying global competition in technology, the state adopted this strategy as a fundamental national policy, putting science, technology and education at the heart of national development.

The state then launched the "985" and "211" projects, building over a hundred key institutions of higher learning and a number of leading academic disciplines. This propelled Chinese universities into the ranks of the world's best. Research funding has climbed steadily alongside these efforts.

In 2025, national spending on basic research reached RMB 277.8 billion, and China now ranks first globally in R&D personnel, top-tier journal publications, and international patent applications.

Pharmaceutical development shows what this investment can produce. The US long held undisputed dominance in innovative drug development. Yet in 2025, China approved 76 innovative drugs for market, surpassing the US for the first time. Eleven of these were first-in-class drugs, the hardest category to develop.

China's new drug approvals hit 76 in 2025. (CCTV photo)

China's total drug development pipeline reached 4,751 candidates in 2025, compared to the US's 4,019. Global early-stage drug development has shifted from a US-led model to a dual-center model shared between the US and China.

 A Window of Opportunity to Seize

Hong Kong faces a window of opportunity created by America's talent outflow. It must not act as a passive recipient. It has to seize the initiative and align with the goal of building itself into a talent hub and international education center.

For top scientific talent, Hong Kong offers unique and irreplaceable advantages. Its basic research foundation is solid, with five universities ranked among the world's top 100. Homegrown scientists such as Dennis Lo, Shing-Tung Yau and Lap-chee Tsui, along with dozens of fellows from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, add further depth.

Under the institutional advantages of "one country, two systems," Hong Kong connects conveniently to mainland markets and research systems. It also offers a common law system, a simple tax regime, and a trilingual environment, all of which make it easier for overseas talent to adapt to local life.

At the moment, the SAR government is pushing innovation, technology and talent attraction with unprecedented vigor. Chief Secretary Eric Chan has pointed to an approach of "using talent to drive technology, using technology to lead industry, and using industry to gather talent."

The SAR government is also actively pushing the development of the Northern Metropolis, as a future innovation hub. It has launched the "Study in Hong Kong" brand.

Results are already showing. In 2025, Hong Kong rose to fourth place globally and first in Asia in the World Talent Ranking published by Switzerland's IMD, while the Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou technology cluster ranked first in the world.

Hong Kong climbs to 4th in world talent rankings. (ISD photo)

The fields suffering the heaviest US talent outflow are artificial intelligence, biomedicine and computer science. These happen to be exactly the areas Hong Kong is currently prioritizing for development.

Hong Kong should systematically leverage its own strengths and formulate precise strategies to bring in top overseas talent. It should proactively extend an olive branch to scientists seeking opportunities abroad, turning this moment of talent mobility into momentum for its own innovation leap.

From Lab to Industry

While attracting world-class research talent, Hong Kong must also streamline the pathway from university research to industrial application. This means reforming the current Research Assessment Exercise (RAE).

Beyond valuing research output, the University Grants Committee (UGC) should also increase the weight given to technology transfer outcomes in its evaluations, to encourage scholars' enthusiasm for engaging with industry.

Compared with universities in Europe and America, Hong Kong's universities remain young. With appropriate policy support, they can effectively translate top laboratory research into production. There is considerable room, and great potential, for growth.

Some argue that Hong Kong, as an international financial center, need only excel in finance to drive other industries. In the past, Hong Kong modeled itself on Britain, treating finance as the pillar of economic development. Yet London, once ranked alongside New York and Hong Kong as a top international financial center, fell out of the world's top 20 IPO markets last year.

Hong Kong tops global IPOs. London misses the list. (Online news photo)

In the first half of 2025, the London Stock Exchange completed just five IPOs, raising only £160 million in total. That is the lowest half-year figure in 30 years, as Britain's financial industry continues to shrink.

This shows that finance alone cannot sustain a society's long-term future. Hong Kong should take this as a lesson. While safeguarding finance as its "golden signboard," it must also make full use of the mainland's vast hinterland as support and actively expand into education, innovation and technology, and other diverse industries. Only then can it stand at the forefront amid global upheaval.

2026 marks the opening year of the nation's 15th Five-Year Plan, and Hong Kong's own first five-year plan has already entered the public consultation stage. We must recognize the current landscape and proactively align with national strategy.

We must take up the tasks assigned to us under the 15th Five-Year Plan, so that we may become an international innovation and technology center sooner rather than later. America's regression stems from having forgotten this original mission. We, on the other hand, are charting our path forward through science and education.

SD Advocates

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