British Council Scholarships launched for female Hong Kong Students

Although more women than men in Hong Kong are graduating with bachelor’s degrees, there is still a need to address the challenges women face in academia. 

The British Council have launched their first ever postgraduate scholarships for women based in Hong Kong to raise awareness of the challenges of the gender gap in the country.

Please can you tell us in more detail about the British Council Newcastle University Postgraduate Scholarships for Women 2024?

"The British Council Newcastle University Postgraduate Scholarships for Women 2024 is a new initiative launched in March this year, as a collaborative effort between our University and British Council Hong Kong. The idea is to provide five scholarships a year to Hong Kong women students from minority backgrounds to continue their postgraduate studies in the UK, in selected Master programmes offered by Newcastle University.

"The programme is being funded by an endowment made to the British Council by the Tang Shiu Kin Trust, and the five Master programmes highlighted for this initiative is Sustainability Management MSc, Environmental Engineering MSc, Emerging Technologies and the Law LLM,  Economics and Finance MSc, International Development MA and Education with Cross Cultural Communication MA.

"The launch of this timely initiative took place on Wednesday 6 March this year and the occasion was marked by a symposium hosted and organised by the British Council Hong Kong, which gathered international experts to discuss the challenges faced by women seeking to advance their academic careers, especially in STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine) and related fields."

How can this scholarship help develop female students?

"With the support of this scholarship, female students can access opportunities that may otherwise be unavailable to them, usually due to compounded disadvantage derived from cultural stereotypes around gender, ethnic background, and socio-economic conditions – stereotypes which unfortunately persist (in explicit but also tacit forms) in academic institutions worldwide."

The scholarships also allow for more diversity on the programmes. How will this enhance the student experience?

"It is not often that we have the opportunity to enrol young talented female students from Hong Kong onto our postgraduate programmes, especially in STEMM programmes and Master's courses such as the ones promoted through this initiative.

"I have no doubt that the successful scholarship recipients will add new perspectives and interesting cultural experiences to Newcastle University’s current student population, and that future cohorts in these programmes would have learning and knowledge sharing enriched by the input and participation of Hong Kong colleagues.

"Learning opportunities will not be limited to the formal curriculum but to a wide range of extra-curricular activities across the University, including voluntary membership to student societies reflecting a variety of topics and interests including social, environmental, cultural, intellectual, leisure and well-being oriented.

"I see it as a two-way street: both Hong Kong and other students would benefit from sharing academic, work and career ideas on their personal and professional development, as well as on their vision for a more responsible, inclusive, and fair society for all."

"As alumni were sharing many happy memories of their academic years in the UK (some of them as far back as 2006), they expressed a keen interest to maintain and enhance their connection with our University through more regular alumni-centred events, in Hong Kong as well as in Newcastle."

You helped create the new Sustainability Management MSc programme. Can you tell us more about this, your background on the subject, and the importance of sustainability at Newcastle University Business School?

"The new Sustainability Management MSc programme responds to a clearly identified need to produce graduates with specific expertise in Sustainability – such as Sustainability Analysts, Officers and Managers – who are increasingly needed in a variety of industries, across all three sectors (business, government, and civil society).

"The core, distinctive idea of our programme is to teach our students how the key operations and functions of an organisation can be restructured based on sustainability principles, so that their integration can lead to making the organisation (as a whole) more sustainable. Our curriculum focuses both on how to transition existing organisations to more sustainable business models and how to create sustainability-born organisations.

"In over 15 years of research in sustainability, corporate social responsibility, business ethics and strategic management, I have developed a systems-thinking based, ecological perspective on Education for Sustainability (EfS). This is challenge-led (starting from the practical problem rather than a particular academic discipline) and student-centred (starting from the student’s learning needs rather than from the set teaching agenda).

"As Associate Dean for Ethics, Responsibility and Sustainability (ERS) at Newcastle University Business School, I consider that our key strategic objective is to ensure sustainability becomes an integral part of the student curriculum and experience. This is the central mark of our School’s distinctive offering, and this focus is fully justified. We have increasing evidence that the future of business schools, in the UK and globally, will revolve around the ability to deliver impactful education for sustainability and to create graduates who are socially responsible citizens, who can shape a more just and inclusive future for humanity on a healthy planet."