Secretary for Education Eddie Ng visited the European Research Council in Belgium yesterday.
He met with council President Prof Jean Bourguignon and other senior representatives to discuss strategies for funding research.
He said the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government attaches great importance to supporting research work conducted by the post-secondary sector.
"Funding commitment from the Government has been a rising trend since 2004-05. In 2012-13, the reported aggregate expenditure on research of University Grants Committee-funded institutions amounted to $7.58 billion, an increase of 6% compared with the previous year. Of that amount, 82% came from the Government."
Noting publicly-funded institutions in Hong Kong have 600 research collaborations with 28 European Union member countries, Mr Ng said he hopes Hong Kong-EU co-operation in education can be further enhanced.
The council is the first pan-European funding body for frontier research, which has funded about 4,500 projects and counted eight Nobel laureates since its establishment in 2007.
