Who is eligible to apply (as a PC/PI)?
- Only academic staff members whose conditions of employment meet all the following requirements are eligible for applying for RGC grants as Principal Investigator (PI):
1. having a full-time1 appointment in the university proper2 of UGC-funded universities;
2. being at Staff Grades from 'A' to 'I' 3 (i.e. from 'Professor' to 'Assistant Lecturer');
3. being primarily engaged in and spending at least 80% of time in degree or higher degree work4 at the university proper; and
4. salary being wholly funded5 by the university proper.
1 Part-time staff and staff holding honorary appointments are excluded.
2 Excluding schools/arms of continuing education and professional training and other analogous outfits.
3 Polytechnic staff grades are excluded.
4 A Project Investigator who is / will be seconded to work full-time or part-time at the two Innovation and Technology (I&T) clusters (Health@InnoHK and AIR@InnoHK) at the Hong Kong Science Park; or to conduct research in a university or a research institute / body / agency in the Mainland / overseas jurisdiction, is still considered eligible to apply for the GRF.
5 Staff who are receiving income from paid appointments outside the university proper do not satisfy this requirement
- Visiting staff will only be eligible if they have a full-time appointment in the university proper covering at least one year or the duration of the project, whichever is the longer. Staff supported by external research grants6 are however not eligible.
- As a transitional measure, academic staff who are engaged in non-degree programmes which are still funded by the UGC may also apply as the PI. Eligible staff in this category must be wholly funded from the General Funds of the university concerned. This arrangement would continue until such time when the relevant programmes are no longer funded by the UGC. Cases of an exceptional nature (including circumstances not covered by the above rules) will be considered by the RGC on a case-by-case basis.