Internal Matching Support

• Purpose
  The Post-Doctoral Fellowship (PDF) Matching Fund provides partial support for post-doctoral fellows in all disciplinary areas of knowledge-based research with emphasis on individual-type projects. It is intended to help faculty upgrade their research personnel to achieve a higher goal or higher level of productivity.

• Application and Deadline
  Please click here for submitting an online application.
  The application deadline is Monday, 28 November 2022.

• Period
  Funding support will be provided for a maximum of 12 months.

• Funding Level
  The award will be a matching of 50% of the postdoc's salary, up to a maximum of HK$13,500 per month. (N.B. The matching fund will not cover payment for leave not taken during the postdoc's employment period.)

• Eligibility
  a) The applicant must be a full-time faculty at HKUST. Priority will be given to faculty at the rank of Assistant or Associate Professor.
  b) Faculty members who have been granted PDF awards in the past two years will be accorded a lower priority, as will faculty who will be on sabbatical during the postdoc appointment period.

• Selection Factors
  a) Quality of the proposed project
  b) Record of research accomplishments of the PI
  c) Availability of external funding (normally CERG/GRF) for matching
  d) Inadequacy of current funding support for a needed postdoc
  e) Impact of the PDF Matching Fund award on research output
  f) Having an identified postdoc candidate at the time of award application is not required (but could give the application a higher priority if the candidate is highly qualified for the project.)

• Approval
  Approval will be made by the Co-Chairs of CORI (Provost and VP-RD) or their designates, based on the recommended ranking of proposals from each of the Schools. 

• Enquiries
  For enquiries, please contact Ms Cat Leung (Ext 6166; catleung@ust.hk) of the Office of the Vice-President for Research and Development. 

Matching Support

1. To encourage interdisciplinary large scale group research, matching support may be considered for projects that have won successful bids in major group research funding schemes.
2. The following are the basic principles for the matching fund:
   1. The matching is intended to support group projects led by HKUST, or in which HKUST researchers play a significant role. The matching request should serve to foster inter-disciplinary research at HKUST.
   2. The matching request must be made to VPRD through Research Office at the time of the project application and the matching amount must be included in the proposal budget, irrespective of the role of the faculty member (whether s/he is Principal Investigator or Co-investigator) in the project.
   3. The matching fund can be in form of space, equipment, PGS allocation and/or cash, subject to the decision of VPRD.
   4. The PGS allocation is given on the condition of co-supervision of PG studentship. PIs are requested to inform VPRDO of the names of the supervisors and students, and the program of the students, within two months after the allocation.
   5. No non-HKUST share of funding will be matched.
   6. Downloading of matching fund will be subject to annual review on a case-by-case basis.
   7. Please note that all matching fund is intended for use in Hong Kong.
   8. The amount of matching will be allocated according to the following principles with actual amount to be approved by VPRD. Please note that all matching fund provision is subject to the funding availability and considerations of overall resource allocation:

   Grant	Matching Fund
   Area of Excellence (AoE)* Theme-based Research Scheme (TBRS)* Mainland Major Group Projects (重大項目) (AoE equivalent projects) State Key Lab (SKL) HK Branch of Chinese National Engineering Research Center (CNERC).	Up to 20% of the awarded project sum allocated to HKUST over the normal duration of the project capped at $2 million per year at maximum.
   Collaborative Research Fund (CRF) Equipment Grant Group Project	For Equipment Grant, 50% equipment matching per RGC's requirement if the equipment is located in HKUST. For Group Project, up to 20% of the awarded project sum allocated to HKUST over the normal duration of the project#.

   *Starting from the 2016/17 AoE and TBRS exercises, institutions are required to contribute 10% of the total approved budget per RGC's requirement. There is a general understanding among local institutions that each involved institution will provide 10% matching of the awarded project sum allocated to their institutions.
   
   Matching for equipment under TBRS and AoE will be considered separately.
   
   #The 20% matching for CRF projects will take effect for projects awarded in 2017/18 and hereafter.

3. The university matching support will be provided by the Office of Vice-President for Research and Development. Departments/Schools are welcome to be engaged and provide additional support if resources are available. Under exceptional and justifiable circumstances, the university may consider providing additional supplement up to 7.5% of the project overhead allocated to HKUST or $2 million total at maximum. This will only be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Updated as at 19 December 2017