The Health Research Symposium organised by the Health Bureau today attracted enrolment from over 850 medical and healthcare practitioners, researchers, academics, and community and government representatives to share the research findings of projects funded by the Health & Medical Research Fund (HMRF) and to exchange experiences.

Four world-renowned experts - Prof Anthony Jorm, Dr Alexander Ng, Prof Chen Zhengming and Prof Corinne Faivre-Finn delivered keynote lectures at the symposium to share their experiences and insights on mental health, application of big data in primary healthcare, precision medicine, and real-world research respectively.

Speaking at the event’s opening ceremony, Secretary for Health Prof Lo Chung-mau said the Government strives to promote the translation of medical and health research by researchers and the healthcare sector by funding and supporting research and training via the HMRF for people’s well-being and to advance medical innovation.

He noted that since the research fund was established in 2011, the Government has committed over $4 billion and funded over 2,000 investigator-initiated research projects, more than 90 research fellowship awards and close to 300 commissioned studies.

"I am pleased to see that many HMRF-funded projects have provided researchers with effective support for them to create new knowledge in the healthcare field and yielded fruitful results in translating research into evidence-based application, with significant contribution to promoting citizens' health.”

The health chief called on local researchers to make good use of the fund to accelerate the translation of research results, unleash new quality productive forces in medical innovation, and push forward Hong Kong's development into an international health and medical innovation hub.

According to government surveys on 145 HMRF-funded projects and with technology/knowledge transfer offices of universities this year, 78% of the funded projects had their research findings published in peer-reviewed journals, whereas 42% of them received additional funding for further research with each project receiving an additional funding five times that of the HMRF grant on average.

In terms of progress towards industrialisation, the HMRF-funded projects have filed 162 patent applications in different places including the Mainland, Hong Kong, Europe, the US and Japan, established 15 spin-out companies/joint ventures/incubation programmes and signed 11 collaboration agreements of various types.

Moreover, some HMRF-funded studies have brought positive impact on the formulation of healthcare policies and practices in areas such as infectious diseases and cancer treatment.

Awards were also presented to 13 researchers in recognition of their excellent research efforts and outstanding contributions in medical and health, health promotion and COVID-19.

Also at the symposium, 28 local project teams funded by the HMRF and four recipients of the Research Fellowship Scheme shared their research findings and translation results, covering areas including advanced medical technologies, primary healthcare and preventive medicine, non-communicable diseases, mental health and infectious diseases.