To foster academic exchange in the field of plant protection among higher education institutions in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macao, the Centre for Continuing Education (CCE) at the University of Macau (UM) and the Hong Kong University School of Professional and Continuing Education (HKU SPACE) joined to organize a week-long Thematic Training Programme on Plant Protection for 19 outstanding undergraduate students from the College of Plant Protection at Nanjing Agricultural University (NAU) from August 23 to 28, 2025. This marks the second consecutive year that NAU has selected students to participate in this Hong Kong-Macao summer study programme.
The programme featured a rich and compact itinerary spanning both Hong Kong and Macao. During their time in Hong Kong, the students attended two cutting-edge lectures on the HKU campus: “Plant Protection in Hong Kong: Urban Challenges, Conservation, and Sustainable Practices” and “Creating Biodiverse Green Spaces in Hong Kong Using Natural Growth”, gaining deep insights into the unique plant protection strategies of a global metropolis. After moving to Macao, the students participated in a thematic lecture at the University of Macau titled “Discovery of Plant Chemical Defenses Driven by Traditional Chinese Medicine Analysis”. Additionally, the programme specially invited Dr. Joe Chan, a renowned nature education instructor and environmentalist in Macao, to deliver a talk on “The Current Status and Future of Macao’s Vegetation Environment”, providing an in-depth analysis of the local ecological characteristics.
In the final summary session, the students delivered detailed group presentations based on their learning over the past few days and created a short video to vividly document their memorable study moments in Macao. At the closing ceremony, the group leader, Associate Professor Jiang Chunhao from NAU’s College of Plant Protection, stated in his speech that the programme truly embodied the spirit of “traveling ten thousand miles is as important as reading ten thousand books”, and that the students had gained a great deal both academically and personally. Student representative Zhang Tingting also shared her thoughts, expressing that the experience gave her a deeper understanding of the vegetation characteristics of southern coastal cities and that she hopes to have the opportunity to pursue further studies in Hong Kong or Macao in the future.
CCE will continue to develop more high-quality training programmes and build more exchange platforms to promote deeper communication and cooperation between outstanding universities in Mainland China and the University of Macau.