As one of the world's premier science faculties, the Faculty of Science boasts a long history of excellence in basic research across a broad spectrum of research expertise. We have about 150 renowned scientists, 500 postgraduate students and comparable numbers of postdoctoral researchers and research staff. In recent years, the Faculty has also placed increasing emphasis on and achieved remarkable progress in applied and strategic areas of research.

The goal of the Faculty is to train the next generation of scientists and scientifically aware graduates and through its teaching and research to add significantly to scientific knowledge and practice.

The Faculty comprises the School of Biological Sciences and five Departments, namely, Chemistry, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Mathematics, Physics, and Statistics and Actuarial Science. Five of our Faculty members are members of Chinese Academy of Sciences (accumulated number) and many are recipients of national and international awards and fellowships.

We have a State Key Laboratory in Synthetic Chemistry and three Areas of Excellence in research funded by the Research Grants Council, they are in the areas of Theory, Modeling and Simulation of Emerging Electronics, Chemical Biology Approach to Molecular Medicine and Molecular Functional Materials. We also have five interdisciplinary research units: The HKU-TCL Joint Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence, The HKU-UCAS Joint Institute of Theoretical and Computational Physics, The Institute of Mathematical Research, the Laboratory for Space Research, and The Swire Institute of Marine Science.