Four distinguished individuals will receive honorary doctoral degrees from City University of Hong Kong (CityU) in recognition of their significant contributions to education and the well-being of society.

The recipients, Dr Roy Chung Chi-ping, GBS, JP, Professor Michael Graetzel, Professor Chad A. Mirkin and Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs will receive their awards at the Honorary Awards Ceremony on 6 October.

Dr Roy Chung Chi-ping, Co-Founder and Non-Executive Director of Techtronic Industries Company Limited, will receive an Honorary Doctor of Business Administration. A renowned industrialist, Dr Chung is actively engaged in community welfare and public services. He is the Founder and Chairman of Bright Future Charitable Foundation and a Court Member at CityU. He was Chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries and is currently its Honorary President.

Dr Chung was awarded the Bronze Bauhinia Star in 2011 by the Hong Kong SAR Government and the Gold Bauhinia Star in 2017 in recognition of his distinguished public service to the Government and the Hong Kong community. He was appointed a Justice of the Peace in 2005 and in 1997, he was awarded the Young Industrialist Awards of Hong Kong and further awarded Industrialist of the Year in 2014.

Professor Michael Graetzel, Director of the Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, will receive an Honorary Doctor of Science. He is a physical chemist who has pioneered research on energy and electron transfer reactions in mesoscopic systems, and their use to generate electricity and chemical fuels from sunlight.

Professor Graetzel is known for his discovery of dye-sensitised solar cells, which engendered the advent of perovskite photovoltaics, constituting the most exciting breakthrough in the recent history of photovoltaics. His over 1,800 publications have received some 460,000 citations with an h-index of 296 demonstrating the strong impact of his scientific work. Professor Graetzel has received many honours and awards for his scientific achievements and is an elected member to several prestigious academies.

Professor Chad A. Mirkin, Director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology at Northwestern University, will receive an Honorary Doctor of Science. A world-renowned nanoscience expert, Professor Mirkin is known for his discovery and development of spherical nucleic acids (SNAs) and SNA-based biodetection and therapeutic schemes, the invention of Dip-Pen Nanolithography (DPN) and related cantilever-free nanopatterning methodologies, On-Wire Lithography (OWL), Co-Axial Lithography (COAL), and contributions to supramolecular chemistry and nanoparticle synthesis.

He has been recognised for his accomplishments with over 250 national and international awards, and is one of very few scientists to be elected to all three US National Academies (Medicine, Science, and Engineering). In addition, Professor Mirkin is the author of over 850 manuscripts and over 1,200 patent applications worldwide (over 400 issued), and the founder of multiple companies, including Nanosphere, AuraSense, TERA-print, Azul 3D, MattIQ, and Flashpoint Therapeutics.

Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs, University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, will receive an Honorary Doctor of Social Science. He is a world-renowned economics professor and is widely recognised for bold and effective strategies to address complex challenges including the escape from extreme poverty, the global battle against human-induced climate change, international debt and financial crises, national economic reforms, and the control of pandemic and epidemic diseases.   

Professor Sachs is President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Co-Chair of the Council of Engineers for the Energy Transition, among others. From 2001 to 2018, Professor Sachs served as Special Advisor to UN Secretaries-General Kofi Annan (2001–2017), Ban Ki-moon (2008–2016), and António Guterres (2017–2018). 

He was the 2022 recipient of the Tang Prize in Sustainable Development and was the co-recipient of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize, the leading global prize for environmental leadership. He has been named among Time magazine’s 100 most influential world leaders on two occasions.