Professor Yuzhuo Cai published an opinion piece in the Hong Kong Economic Journal (信報) on 20 August 2026, titled "Northern Metropolis University Town: Making the Triple Helix Actually Turn" (北都大學城：讓三螺旋真正轉動). Professor Cai argues that the real test of the University Town will come not from the master plan but from what follows land allocation.
With more than 1,000 hectares in the overall area and some 300 hectares set aside for campuses, the opportunity is rare for a sector long constrained by space. Yet if allocation is judged by floor area, enrolment targets and vision statements alone, the outcome may be little more than a cluster of walled new campuses.
Hong Kong does not lack memoranda of understanding, he writes; what it lacks are the arrangements that keep collaboration going. Reading the Triple Helix as "universities supply knowledge, firms supply money, government supplies land" makes it far too thin.
He proposes treating the first round of land allocation as a reviewable collaboration compact rather than a one-off permit — with applicants specifying which partners will co-invest, how funding will be matched, and whether research can reach pilot or clinical translation.
Education itself, he adds, must not be sidelined in the blueprint. For a university rooted in education, the most meaningful contribution may not be another enclosed campus but an education innovation platform — bringing schools, social service organisations, companies and other institutions together to test AI-assisted learning, student support and inclusive education in real settings, and to settle questions of data use, teacher workload and equity at the design stage.
Read the opinion HERE.
