President's Welcome

Professor Jette G. Hansen Edwards
june 1st 2023

Professor Jette G. Hansen Edwards

Dear Fellows,

The new Executive Committee of HKAH officially took office in February, 2023. Since that time, we have been busy behind the scenes managing the administrative aspects of the HKAH and, in specific, the legal transition of office bearers. As the process is now nearly complete, the Exco have met to discuss the next steps for the HKAH.

I would like to briefly to share with your some of the events/initiatives we are working on for the next academic year.

The main goal over the next year is to re-awaken and re-energize the HKAH by: 

  1. Holding several more formal events as well as less formal gatherings of fellows, in order to introduce new fellows and re-connect with fellows in Hong Kong and overseas; 

  2. Expanding our communications with fellows, to keep up to date with the many achievements of our fellows and provide support for meet ups, when possible, through a newsletter as well as social media and emails;

  3. Creating links with organizations/societies/academies overseas, to strengthen our international profile; 

  4. Clarifying the Associate Fellow membership category and progression to Associate Fellow for an Early Career Fellow as well as direct nomination to the category for new Academy members; and

  5. Reintroducing The First Book Prize Award. 

We will hold an AGM in late September 2023 to introduce new members to the academy; this will be followed by bi-monthly informal gatherings for those who are interested. We will aim to hold another more formal meeting and dinner in May 2024, to introduce the winner of The First Book Prize Award. 

The nomination of new Early Career and Full Fellows is a priority for the coming year; we would therefore like to hold the nomination and voting period this summer, in order to introduce and welcome new fellows to the academy at our AGM in September. 

We would therefore like to open up nominations to the Full Fellow and Early Career Fellow categories; the nomination criteria are in the attached word file. Could you please send your nominations to Catherine Ladds, Secretary of HKAH, at hongkongacademy [at] outlook [dot] com, by 31 July 2023. The subject line should be "Fellowship Nomination 2023”.

All the best,

Professor Jette G. Hansen Edwards