With the support of the national policy and the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) government, the University of Macau (UM) has launched a number of projects involving industry-academia collaboration in order to promote moderate economic diversification of Macao. Some of the projects are currently undergoing a process of technology transfer in Macao, the Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin and other parts of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and are expected to generate economic value and promote the development of various industries.
The cover story of this issue’s UMagazine features UM’s new ‘5-in‑1’ system for research innovation and results transfer. The system is one of the key initiatives set out in the university’s Five-Year Development Plan (Academic Years 2021/2022 to 2025/2026). We interviewed Rector Yonghua Song, Vice Rector Ge Wei, and some other professors about how the system can help UM researchers bring their research results from the laboratory to the production line.
Macao is a unique and linguistically diverse community, with three primary written languages and four primary spoken languages. Taking advantage of this multilingual and multicultural environment, UM has gathered linguists from around the world who developed a model of language education with distinctive characteristics on the campus. In this issue, we talk to these scholars to gain a deeper understanding of language teaching at UM.
We also interviewed Prof Angus Chu, head of the Department of Economics, and Prof Jeremy De Chavez, assistant professor in the Department of English and recent recipient of the UM Teaching Excellence Award. These two professors shared with us their experience in teaching and research. The Academic Research column explores two of the latest research topics at UM, namely the contagiousness of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta strain and the role of artificial intelligence in identifying compounds from traditional Chinese medicine with therapeutic potential against Alzheimer’s disease.
UM is the only university in Macao with a residential college (RC) system, which is a multicultural and multidisciplinary learning platform for knowledge integration. Consisted of ten unique RCs, the RC system embodies the concept of whole-person education at the undergraduate level through a ‘4-in-1’ model that includes discipline-specific education, general education, research and internship education, and community and peer education. To help readers learn more about each RC, we have launched a new section titled RC Development. In this issue, the section covers an entrepreneurship model that Cheng Yu Tung College has developed to help students start businesses, and explores the characteristics of Moon Chun Memorial College that make it a multidisciplinary and international institution.
