‘Accountability agreements’ raise autonomy concerns

Hong Kong’s eight publicly funded universities have signed three-year ‘accountability agreements’ with the city authorities, aligning them more closely with the national and education goals of the Beijing government. The agreements also increase government control over university budgets, which experts say undermines university autonomy.

The eight universities, including the highly ranked University of Hong Kong (HKU), the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), each signed an ‘accountability agreement’ with the university funding body, the University Grants Committee (UGC) covering the 2025 to 2028 funding cycle.

The agreements made public by the UGC at the end of June commit universities to being part of Hong Kong’s integration into the development of mainland China.

Although the three-year ‘accountability agreements’ were first introduced in 2019, experts noted this is the first time they explicitly require universities in Hong Kong to follow Beijing’s strategic aims for higher education and align with statements by Xi Jinping.

Universities would “strive to follow the advice and guidance of the Central Government (in Beijing) on the future of Hong Kong”, according to the agreements.

For example, the HKU agreement stipulates the university will “fully support” developing Hong Kong into an international hub for higher education with reference to the 2024 to 2035 master plan on building China into a leading country in education, and make use of the Greater Bay Area to push forward with Hong Kong’s education development.

The emphasis on mainland priorities was outlined by Chinese leader Xi Jinping during a visit to Hong Kong in 2022. “Xi’s speech set overall guidelines that were reflected in (Hong Kong Chief Executive) John Lee’s policy speeches for Hong Kong, but these agreements squarely commit Hong Kong’s universities to following them,” a CUHK academic said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Hong Kong universities have already brought in compulsory patriotic education and national security law courses. The new HKU course also covers the development of the Greater Bay Area that combines Hong Kong, Macau and several cities in southern Guangdong province as an innovation hub for China, one of the priorities outlined by Xi.

William Yat Wai Lo, associate professor in the School of Education, Durham University, UK, told University World News:“Integration with national development and the promotion of national security education are now key principles in Hong Kong’s education, so these provisions represent a reaffirmation rather than a major shift,” describing it as “an ongoing realignment.”

Funding clauses

For the first time, the agreements also include clauses that allow the city government to claw back funding from individual universities if they fail to meet their commitments or have other major deficiencies in institutional governance. Experts said this implies closer government scrutiny of university governance.

The new clauses lay down that the city government can not only claw back funds allocated to universities but also exercise fuller control over the funding by “suspension, deferral, variation or revocation of the amount to be disbursed to (the university) as deemed fit by the government and/or the UGC, and (the university) agrees to comply with such demands or be bound by such decisions,” according to agreements.

“It is a new layer of control over universities. It gives the government additional powers to scrutinise university operations, increasing the pressure on university autonomy,” one CUHK academic told University World News.
Recurrent grants, normally fixed for a period of three years, will also be reduced if university tuition fees are increased, according to the agreements, giving the government new powers to cut funding under certain conditions.

Universities put on a brave front when funding clawbacks were announced earlier this year, but some university representatives objected privately.

“It would appear that the UGC intends for the agreements to be legally binding. It seems that the university would likely lose some funding if judged in violation,” said Michael C Davis, a former law professor at HKU and a recent fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a think tank in Washington DC shut down this year by the Trump administration.

However, Davis told University World News: “It greatly affects university autonomy. The Academic Freedom Index of 2024 put Hong Kong in the bottom 10 to 20% for academic freedom,” he said, referring to the index compiled by researchers from the Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, in Germany, and V-Dem in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Lo, who has conducted research into university governance in Hong Kong said: “my interviews with senior management at Hong Kong universities indicate that they feel obliged to follow UGC guidance. One interviewee described the UGC’s role as ‘non-statutory official’, while the UGC sees itself as an advisory body. Thus, the agreements may not be legally binding but are understood as mutually accepted frameworks.”

He did not believe such agreements undermine university autonomy; “rather, they reaffirm the UGC’s role as a steering body – arguably more authoritative than it formally claims”, Lo stated.

But he added that it “signals a degree of institutionalising the government’s role in university governance through funding mechanisms, so it will be important to monitor how the (Hong Kong) government exercises this authority going forward,” noting that “government funding remains the primary, if not sole, mechanism of control”.

Increased transparency, yet also coercion

While the agreements are intended to increase university transparency, some experts noted they could also be used in different ways to coerce universities, as they lay out specific indicators, including performance indicators, which “enables a performance-based model for resources allocation”, according to the UGC, while noting it “reinforces the autonomous status of the universities by allowing them to articulate their individual missions, visions and strategic goals”.

The agreements include sector-wide indicators on the quality of students’ experience of teaching and learning, research strength, community engagement and internationalisation but also engagement with mainland priorities and financial health.

Indicators outlined in the HKU agreement specifically refer to having 25% to 60% of students in UGC-funded universities pursuing programmes relating to STEAM disciplines – Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics – by the 2026-2027 academic year. This implies scaling back on humanities and social sciences, an approach mirroring Beijing’s priorities, though the targets are more flexible than the mainland’s for its own universities.

Violations

But some academics said the agreements can also be used to pressure universities.

“Given the current repression in Hong Kong, I would expect the HK government and various pro-Beijing politicians to attack universities they claim are violating the agreements. They may use this as a cudgel even if there is no evident violation, claiming they are in violation,” Davis said, pointing to a common tactic used by pro-Beijing media against scholars in Hong Kong.

“After the 2014 (Hong Kong student-led) protest there started to be such signs, with attacks in the pro-Beijing press on university efforts to guard their autonomy. Professors might be attacked for their statements or students for their protests. The agreements, much like other forms of oppression, attempt to legalise those efforts at control,” according to Davis.

The most recent example involved the Chinese language Beijing-backed Ta Kung Pao newspaper late last month criticising CUHK’s Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, which published a poll in May showing just 19% of respondents expressing satisfaction with the Hong Kong government, with 38.2% saying they were dissatisfied.

Support for Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu was at 46% compared to 49% in May last year, according to the survey.

Ta Kung Pao claimed this contradicted other surveys showing 70% approval for Lee. In a 30 July report citing its own “in-depth investigation”, the newspaper said it had unearthed two researchers – former US diplomat in China and academic Morton Holbrook, who was also director of the Hong Kong America Centre at CUHK from 2013 to 2016, and Taiwan academic Michael Hsiao – as being involved in the study, calling them “anti-China forces” and accusing them of smearing the governments of China and Hong Kong.

A CUHK spokesperson told Ta Kung Pao the two honorary scholars were unpaid and would have their honorary titles revoked. The university spokesperson added the Institute was reviewing all current honorary research fellows and would terminate the appointments of any individuals that may violate Hong Kong laws, including the national security law.

The university said it would also suspend future hires who violate local laws.

Hsiao told Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) this week he had never been involved with opinion polls during the 20 to 30 years he had been cooperating with the CUHK institute.

Based on their past relationship, CUHK appointed him as an honorary researcher, but there had been no concrete cooperation for the past seven or eight years. He added he had not visited Hong Kong in more than 10 years.