Recently, Chair Professor Zhang Hongming, Dean of the University of International College and Director of the Education Development Center at the Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST), received a letter from Sir Loyd Grossman, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), informing him that he had been elected as a Life Fellow of the RSA.
Founded in 1754 and headquartered in London, the RSA is an academic institution spanning the humanities, arts, natural sciences, industry, manufacturing, commerce, and many other fields. It was granted a Royal Charter by the British Crown in 1847. In 1908, King Edward VII incorporated the institution as a royal body and officially permitted the use of the title “The Royal Society.” It is a top-tier official academic institution with members of the British Royal Family serving as its Presidents. Since its founding, all 17 of its Presidents have been members of the Royal Family. The current patron is His Majesty King Charles, and the current President is HRH Princess Anne.
The RSA distinguishes between two categories of members: Fellows and Life Fellows. The former are annual subscription-paying members, while the latter are proactively nominated by the Society itself, with no fees required. Candidates for Life Fellowship must follow the established procedures set out in the Royal Charter, involving recommendation, nomination, election, and final approval by the review committee before they can become Life Fellows. Upon election, they are awarded the title Life FRSA (full title: Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts), which represents the highest academic honour bestowed by the RSA on an individual. Over its more than 270 years of history, the RSA’s Life Fellows have included academic leaders from over 80 countries worldwide. Currently, there are fewer than 100 active Life Fellows. Among its notable Life Fellows are Karl Marx, Charles Dickens, Benjamin Franklin, Stephen Hawking, Adam Smith, Marie Curie, Nelson Mandela, David Attenborough, Judi Dench, William Hogarth, John Diefenbaker, and Tim Berners-Lee.
Professor Zhang Hongming joined the MUST since January 2022. He previously taught for many years at Fudan University, the National University of Singapore, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has held distinguished appointments, including Shiing-shen Chern Chair Professor, Changjiang Scholar Chair Professor, Chair Professor under the Thousand Talents (Global Experts Recruitment) Program, Honorary Director of the Institute of Linguistics at Nankai University, and IWLC Chair Professor at Tsinghua University.
He has served as President of the International Association of Chinese Linguistics and Vice President of the International Society for Chinese Language Teaching. Currently, he is Vice Chair of the Executive Council of the UK-China Humanities Alliance for Higher Education. His expertise spans prosodic phonology, the interface between phonology and syntax, historical linguistics, contrastive linguistics, comparative poetics, language and culture, international Chinese education, and language acquisition. Professor Zhang has long been Editor-in-Chief of the Routledge Studies in Chinese Linguistics series in the UK and the International Journal of Chinese Linguistics in the Netherlands, and serves as editor-in-chief of the branch for Phonology in the third edition of Encyclopedia of China: Chinese Language and Linguistics. This FRSA honor received by Chair Professor Zhang Hongming not only affirms his academic stature and influence but also recognizes MUST’s strength in the humanities and social sciences.
