President Van Iat Kio shared experience on dementia research with her counterparts in the country

The Specialist Nursing Alliance of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, which was one of the four cooperation projects the College signed at the Second Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Health Cooperation Conference, was officially inaugurated on 23 March 2019 in Guangzhou. The Alliance consists of ten healthcare organizations and higher educational institutes across Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao. On behalf of KWNC and representing the Alliance as a project partner, President Van gave a keynote speech and shared Macao's experiences in the integration of education, research and services in an ageing society such as Macao for the Advanced Course for nursing professionals in Clinical Research Capabilities at the kick-off occasion.

Nine nationally well-known nursing scholars, professors and experts were present to give their presentations to the participants including nurses, graduate students and nursing educators. The lectures focused on nursing research topic selection and design, nursing paper writing, questionnaire design and its reliability and validity assessment, qualitative research, research patent application and transformation of scientific and technological achievements so the Development Plan for Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area could be implemented fully and widely. According to the requirements of high-level and quality hospital construction and high-level nursing specialist development, it is expected to improve the quality of nursing and specialist nursing, promote the development of nursing care in the Greater Bay Area in order to meet the multi-level and diverse needs of society.

As the project partner of the Alliance and a keynote speaker, President Van gave a speech on Macao Experience – an Ageing Society and the Integration of Education, Research, Services at the kick-off meeting. Her sharing focused on the challenges that the ageing population faces in Macao, how the College has been dealing with the issue of ageing by setting up the Nursing & Health Education Research Centre (NHC), the project of Benevolence Lights up my Later Life: A Tailored Meta-programme to Face with Ageing Population in Macau and the experiences running other community research projects. She also shared with the participants the results of various research projects and their impact. President Van specifically introduced the public training programme, community service and research programme, and the development process of the scholar training programme. She touched upon the expansion of curriculum of the College from campus to community, from a single discipline to interdisciplinary cooperation and said that only by establishing community partnerships and regional collaborations can we move in the right developmental direction to combine teaching with research and social services. President Van pointed out that the development of the community project and research success of the Centre have made voices for people with dementia and the elderly in Macao and have drawn the public's attention and support to dementia patients and caregivers. The research results of the Centre have become an important policy-making parameter for the Macao SAR government.