CityU raised its standing among local tertiary institutions in this year's Competitive Earmarked Research Grants (CERG) applications, increasing its funding to HK$56.8 million, a 4.4% increase over last year's results of HK$54.4 million.  

This year, 109 CityU applications were funded, an increase of 7% over last year's figure of 102. Four large grants worth over HK$1 million each were awarded to the University: "Similarities in the Profiles of Gene Expression between Hypoxia and Starvation" (by Professor David Randall and Dr Richard Kong, Biology and Chemistry) ; "Incipient Identity and Cultural Adjustment in Post-Colonial Hong Kong and Macau: A Synchronous Window Approach" (by Professor Benjamin T'sou, Language Information Sciences Research Centre) ; "The Position of Chinese among the Languages of Asia" (by Professor William Wang, Professor Thomas Lee and Professor Murray Gell-Mann, Electronic Engineering) ; "The Acquisition of Word Order and Argument Structure in Chinese: Its Relevance to the Continuity Hypothesis" (by Professor Thomas Lee, Chinese, Translation and Linguistics).

Overall, CityU ranks fourth among local institutions in the number and level of awards, and boasting a success rate of 44.3%Nwhich places the University second across the University Grants Committee sector and above the overall average of 40.7%.