Keynote Speaker
Professor Naubahar SHARIF
Professor & Head of Department of Social Sciences and Policy Studies
The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Biography
Professor Naubahar Sharif is Head of the Department of Social Sciences and Policy Studies (SSPS) at The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK). He worked at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) for 20 years before joining EdUHK, serving as Head of the Division of Public Policy from 2021 to 2025.
His research focuses on the history and development of Hong Kong’s innovation system and on science, technology, and innovation policy in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area. More recently, his work has expanded to the Belt and Road Initiative and to mental health and wellbeing in Hong Kong.
He has published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. His work appears in leading Q1-ranked journals, including Research Policy, Science and Public Policy, The China Journal, and Science, Technology, & Human Values. From 2006 to 2010, he served as a consultant to the Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Commission. His research was selected as one of HKUST’s few sole-authored impact case studies for the 2020 and 2025 Research Assessment Exercises.
Keynote Title
“From Individual Resilience to Institutional Belonging: Rethinking Mental Health in Higher Education”
The keynote will explore student mental health in higher education from a broader institutional perspective, arguing that wellbeing depends not only on individual resilience, but also on whether universities create conditions of belonging, inclusion, and support. While I will draw on my recent work on the mental health experiences of ethnic minority university students in Hong Kong, this will serve as one case within a wider discussion of student wellbeing, inclusion, and institutional responsibility in higher education, with relevance to postgraduate researchers and other student groups.
