The attainment of a sustainable society can manifest in the social, environment, economy, and governance aspects. The Centre, through our action projects, promotes sustainable development with four core approaches, namely, Social Innovation, Collaboration & Partnership, Engagement & Empowerment and, Reinvention of Community Resources.
PSL aspires to build the social-ecological resilience as a way to enhance the capitals for sustainability. We seek to cultivate a collaborative ecosystem that coalesces community of interest and talents, and pulls together resources from the business, government and non-profit sector across the urban-rural value chains for mainstreaming nature-based solution (NbS), resource circularity and regenerative system thinking.
SECAL strives to understand and foster community-based collective action as a vehicle for utilizing human ingenuity, forging reciprocity, and building social capital. In particular, SECAL seeks to nurture social entrepreneurship and crowdsource ideas with a focus on blending social and economic values through fostering various novel social ventures and commoning endeavors.
NPPL seeks to enhance the resilience, capacity and governance of the nonprofit and philanthropic sector as a means to attain social impact. A broad definition of philanthropy is adopted that concerned about the leveraging of private resources – capital, time, space, idea, expertise and network – for public good.
Completed
Ethics in AI Research Awards Initiative for the Asia Pacific
2019-2021
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technological developments pose intricate and complex ethical questions that the industry alone cannot answer. Important research questions in the application of AI should be dealt with not only by companies building and deploying the technology, but also by independent academic research institutions. The latter are best equipped to pursue interdisciplinary research that will benefit society.
To help support rigorous and groundbreaking academic research in these areas, Facebook is collaborating with the Centre for Civil Society and Governance of The University of Hong Kong and the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data, Hong Kong (esteemed co-chair of the ICDPPC Permanent Working Group on Ethics and Data Protection in AI) to launch a Research Initiative to advance Ethics in Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Asia Pacific region that takes into account different disciplinary perspectives. This line of research will also complement Facebook’s efforts that bolster independent research being done in these areas, like the TUM Institute for Ethics in AI and similar Research Awards offered in other countries and regions, such as India and Latin America.
The Research Initiative, through a Request for Proposals (RFP), will result in the production of papers from academic institutions, think tanks, and research organizations registered and operational across the Asia Pacific region. Proposals will be reviewed by a selection committee, and the entities whose proposals are selected will receive a research grant. Research Themes 1) Ethics / Fairness by Design Policy makers are emphasizing the need for ethics by design (see ICDPPC Declaration on Ethics and Data Protection in Artificial Intelligence here). What kinds of policy actions or regimes can foster academia and industry to collaborate for promoting and advancing ethics by design practices and frameworks?
How can developers and companies ensure that their AI systems are explainable, what is the purpose of the latter, and what does it entail?
How can academia help companies and governments better understand and operationalize ethics within their own sectors and activities? How can academia both inspire and build on industry best practices for responsible and ethical development of AI?
How can developers and companies ensure that their AI systems and applications are built in a fair and unbiased way? How should social science and humanities questions around fairness and discrimination be embedded into the technical design of AI? What best practices can we advance in this space?
How can developers and companies ensure that their AI systems are transparent to the affected individuals in a meaningful way? (For example: how will a person know whether he or she is being unfairly discriminated against because of an automated decision?)
What level of autonomy or control should be provided to the affected individuals concerning the use of AI without compromising the legitimate purposes of AI, and how should the control be provided? 2) Governance How do formal legal instruments, including existing and proposed legislation, and ethical AI governance frameworks (informal) interact and mutually influence each other? Does the former stem or preempt the latter, and are they complementary or competing?
What is the role of Ethical Codes in the broader regulatory landscape? How should they relate to laws and regulations (either existing or being debated)?
What is the role of academia in 1) promoting research on AI Governance Frameworks; 2) analyzing, anticipating, and identifying gaps in legislation and other governance models related to AI development and use; and 3) articulating best practices to guide ethical and innovative uses of data? 3) AI Ethics & Diversity How should AI developers and companies foster and apply a multicultural approach to the ethical design of AI?
How can we reconcile and strike a balance between the benefits of a global approach to the need to acknowledge important particularities and differences stemming from companies’ regional user base?
What would be a sound and scalable methodology for researchers and product developers to recognize and solve ethical challenges, while leveraging different regional perspectives?
Completed
School Management Review on the Handling of Teachers’ Complaints & Feedbacks and the Management of Teacher Performance
2019-2021
The Research aims to support and facilitate a School Management Review to be undertaken by the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals (the Group), which aims at enhancing the effectiveness of school management under the Incorporated Management Committee (IMC) and/or School Management Committee (SMC) through improving the handling of teachers’ complaints and feedbacks, and strengthening the management of teacher performance. The Research examines and provides recommendations for action which are instrumental to enhancing the effectiveness of school-based management (for IMC schools) or school management (for SMC kindergartens) in all schools at all levels currently operated by the Group in Hong Kong.
Archived
Social Integration of South Asians in Hong Kong
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According the Census and Statistics Department in 2016, South Asians – Pakistani, Nepalese, and Indians, together constituted the biggest ethnic minority group residing in Hong Kong. Even though the South Asian and local Chinese populations enjoy identical legal, political, and social rights and fulfill similar obligations, they appear to live in two separate worlds. Various figures suggested that the lives of many South Asians were at risk of social, political, and economic exclusion. The purpose of this study was to identify major challenges that South Asians faced when interacting with the local Chinese community, and their main obstacles in attaining societal integration. It also examined the local Chinese population’s perception and social acceptance of South Asians. Recommendations to reduce the service and policy gaps with a view to promoting social inclusion and integration in Hong Kong were made. The investigation was part of the Jockey Club Lab for Cultural Diversity Study, supported by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust.
Archived
The Giving Hong Kong 2016-2017 Report
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Supported by the Faculty of Social Sciences at HKU, the Giving Hong Kong Report 2016-2017 is the first report that strives to supply a landscape view of individual, corporate and foundation giving and volunteering behavior in Hong Kong. Giving and volunteering could be considered as efforts in mobilizing societal resources to achieve a better world for all. Hong Kong society is usually regarded as generous even by international standards. However, as giving and volunteering information are rather scattered, it is difficult to have a full picture of the overall philanthropic scene. This report is an attempt to fill this void. In addition, the study provides a forward looking perspective and should be useful to NGOs in identifying newer forms of fundraising and volunteer recruitment methods. Published in 2019, the report has identified a few issues which ought to be addressed in order to take the field of philanthropy forward.
Archived
Hong Kong NGO Governance Health Survey 2018
2018-2019
Effective governance is essential to the effectiveness of nonprofits and also the long-term development of civil society and the social sector. In recent years, board governance has taken on increasing importance in the spotlight in Hong Kong’s social service sector. Regarding the oversight of nonprofits, stakeholders and the general public are demanding more transparency, accountability and effectiveness. The Excellence in Capacity-building on Entrepreneurship and Leadership for the Third-sector (ExCEL3) Project under the Centre has collaborated with the Hong Kong Council of Social Service and Governance and Management Excellence (GAME) for Public Benefit to develop a self-assessment tool for measuring governance health of NGOs, and to apply the tool to collect data for a landscape survey and analysis. Participating NGOs are offered an agency individual report in which they can find their self-assessment responses, and also relevant information which they could use to compare the governance health of their organizations with that of other participating NGOs of similar size, and to review various areas of governance practices. Further, group debriefing sessions tailor-made for NGOs of different sizes are organized to disseminate the landscape survey findings. Download Hong Kong NGO Governance Health Survey 2018 findings: Key Insights and Recommendations
Landscape Report
Summary of Key Findings
Infographic
Archived
A Study on Ethnic Minorities’ Awareness and Satisfaction towards Selected Public Services (a joint project with Policy 21 Ltd.)
2017-2018
Various government reports have identified certain ethnic groups in Hong Kong to be more vulnerable to poverty risk. In view of the comparatively higher poverty rate of South Asian residents of Hong Kong, and their low usage of public services, including those specifically designed for them, the Special Needs Groups Task Force of the Commission on Poverty contracted a study in 2017 to look into South Asians’ awareness and satisfaction towards a few public services. The South Asian communities in the study consisted of Indian, Pakistani, and Nepalnese; while major public services referred to those offered by the Labour Department, the Employees Retraining Board, the Social Welfare Department, and the Home Affairs Department. The objective of the study is to identify the underlying reasons of the low usage of public services, and recommend improved measures.