Academic Journals Published and Edited by HKU

This article belongs to Module 12 of "The Wild History of HKU · A Wild-History Reference Site on the University of Hong Kong (HKU)", focusing on academic journals published or edited by HKU faculties/research centres, and clearing up several common misattributions (titles containing "Hong Kong" that are not in fact HKU publications). Information is current as of July 2026; journal ownership and founding years have been verified against independent sources, and journals not published by HKU have been explicitly excluded.

"Journal ownership" is where wild history goes most easily astray: a title containing "Hong Kong" is not necessarily an HKU publication, and an HKU academic serving on a journal's editorial board does not make that journal an HKU title. This article classifies strictly by the publishing/owning entity and includes only journals published/owned/edited by an HKU faculty or research centre; external journals on whose boards HKU academics merely sit are not counted as HKU publications. For the University Press, see hku-press-and-flagship-works.md.

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# I. Law

# 1.1 Hong Kong Law Journal

According to the HKU Faculty of Law's HKLJ page^※, the Hong Kong Law Journal is a peer-reviewed general academic law journal, published in cooperation with the HKU Faculty of Law. It was founded in 1971 and carries authoritative scholarship with comparative or international significance. A 50th-anniversary retrospective published in Hong Kong Lawyer magazine^※ records that the journal was co-founded in 1971 by Mr. Henry Litton together with a group of practising lawyers, and that Litton served as its first editor-in-chief. Mr. John Rear, then a senior lecturer in the HKU Law Department, was the natural choice for co-editor given his background in legal publishing. Litton later went on to serve as a Permanent Judge of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal; this episode of founding an academic law journal stands as an academic-publishing credential from the years before his judicial career. The current editor-in-chief is Professor Rick Glofcheski. The journal is indexed in Scopus, the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Current Contents/Social & Behavioral Sciences, and the Index to Legal Periodicals and Books, among other major databases; 2020 marked its 50th anniversary.

# 1.2 Hong Kong Journal of Legal Studies

According to the HKJLS homepage^※, the Hong Kong Journal of Legal Studies describes itself as "the oldest student-run flagship legal journal in Hong Kong". It was founded in 1994, is based at the HKU Faculty of Law (Room 403, Cheng Yu Tung Building, Centennial Campus), and is run and edited by students.

A note on classifications: HKLJ is an academic journal published in cooperation with the Faculty of Law, whereas HKJLS is a journal run by students. Both are Law Faculty-related publications, but their publishing entities differ, and this site marks them accordingly.

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# II. Language

# Asian Journal of Applied Linguistics

According to the Wikipedia entry^※, the Asian Journal of Applied Linguistics is published by the HKU Centre for Applied English Studies, with 1979 recorded as its founding year.

A note on sourcing: Wikipedia records "1979" as the founding year. The year in which the journal began operating under its current name, and its earlier history, may be accounted for differently (some applied-linguistics journals have undergone renaming/reorganisation); this site records, on the basis of the Wikipedia lead, that the journal is published by the HKU Centre for Applied English Studies, with the founding year to be taken from the journal's/publisher's own disclosures for the year in question.

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# III. Humanities

The journal published by HKU's School of Chinese is among the oldest academic periodicals on campus, with roots traceable to the Institute of Oriental Studies in the 1950s. There is also a student academic collection aimed at undergraduates and master's students, and the two are often confused with each other; this section clarifies both.

# 3.1 HKU Journal of Chinese Studies (formerly Journal of Oriental Studies)

According to the "About Us" page on the HKU Journal of Chinese Studies website^※, the journal's predecessor was the Journal of Oriental Studies (JOS), founded in 1954 — making it one of HKU's oldest humanities journals. An archived journal introduction page on the School of Chinese website^※ records that volumes from 1954 to 1964 were published on behalf of the University by the Institute of Oriental Studies; from 1969 the journal was published on behalf of the University by the Centre of Asian Studies — meaning that even before it changed its name, the journal had already twice changed its parent institution, moving from a faculty-level institute to an interdisciplinary research centre. Over decades of operation it has published more than 50 volumes of scholarly articles and book reviews spanning Chinese language, literature, history, philosophy, religion, and translation. From 2022, the journal was formally renamed the HKU Journal of Chinese Studies (港大中文学报, HKUJCS) and placed under the School of Chinese, continuing the original journal's remit while strengthening ties with the Chinese-language academic community across Greater China. The current editor-in-chief is Professor Gang Song. The journal's sections cover Chinese language, literature, history, religion, translation studies, gender studies, Hong Kong studies, Sino-Western comparative studies, distinguished lectures, and book reviews. The journal is also archived on JSTOR^※ under its original name, the Journal of Oriental Studies, with early volumes available in facsimile. According to an announcement on the journal's homepage^※, Vol. 4 No. 1 is expected to appear in mid-summer 2026 as an open-access issue — yet another shift in publishing model for a journal that dates back to 1954, from departmental in-house printing in its early years to open-access electronic publication after its renaming.

A note on the journal's history: the trajectory from Journal of Oriental Studies to HKU Journal of Chinese Studies is a classic case of "the same journal, different names, with the owning institution changing over time". It stands alongside the Hong Kong Law Journal (no name change, but adjustments in publishing arrangements) and the Hong Kong Journal of Legal Studies (student-run, stable title) as three distinct models of journal evolution at HKU, useful for comparison.

# 3.2 Journal of Chinese Language and Literature Studies（《中國語言文學研究集刊》）

According to the journal's introduction page on the School of Chinese website^※, the Journal of Chinese Language and Literature Studies is a student publication of the HKU School of Chinese, carrying outstanding academic papers by undergraduates and Master of Arts students enrolled in the School's Chinese language and literature programmes. It appears twice a year — one issue for undergraduate papers, one for master's papers — and is published as an electronic journal. Based on the visible issue information, the earliest issue is Vol. 1 No. 1 (2023). Like the HKU Journal of Chinese Studies in section 3.1, this journal sits under the School of Chinese, but the level of ownership differs: the former is an academic journal run by a school/research centre, while the latter is a student collection aimed at current students — a parallel to the distinction in the Law Faculty between HKLJ (faculty co-publication) and HKJLS (student-run).

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# IV. Public Administration

# Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration

According to the official introduction on the HKU Department of Politics and Public Administration website^※, the Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration (APJPA) is an academic, double-anonymised peer-reviewed journal dedicated to advancing research on public governance, policy, administration, and management in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. The journal is currently published and distributed by Routledge (Taylor and Francis) since March 2014, but, as the department's official page makes clear, the HKU Department of Politics and Public Administration remains the journal's owner and editorial home, responsible for ensuring its scholarly rigour and relevance. This model — an external publisher handling distribution while an HKU department retains ownership and editorial control — resembles the Hong Kong Law Journal's "faculty co-publication" arrangement, and is a common strategy among HKU journals for "retaining scholarly control" amid the international commercialisation of academic publishing. The journal's precise founding year and original owning institution are not detailed on the HKU official page and remain to be verified.

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# V. Medical Ethics

# Asian Bioethics Review

According to the Springer journal editorial-board page^※, the Asian Bioethics Review (ABR) is an Asia-based international academic journal published quarterly. Its editorial leadership includes scholars affiliated with HKU's Centre for Medical Ethics and Law (CMEL) — a centre jointly established by the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Law.

A note on attribution: ABR's publishing entity is Springer; HKU scholars participate in its editorial leadership. This site lists it as a journal "with deep HKU involvement in editing", not as a journal "independently published and owned by HKU" — the classification is strict, and the distinction is noted.

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# VI. HKU Libraries' Journal Digitisation Platform

Beyond publishing its own journals, the HKU Libraries operate Hong Kong Journals Online^※, a full-text image database offering search and access to selected scholarly and professional journals published in Hong Kong across law, medicine, education, and other fields. According to the platform's official page^※, it holds over 60 journals and more than 490,000 images, covering law, medicine and health, education, philosophy and religion, social sciences, language and literature, science and technology, architecture, arts and entertainment, and history and geography. The three largest categories are social sciences (17 journals), medicine and health (14), and language and literature (13). The earliest holdings date back to 1872, preserving very early records of Hong Kong journal publishing. The platform is a digital-archiving and search service; the journals it holds are not all published by HKU (the journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, for instance, is on the platform but is not an HKU publication). It is therefore classified under "library services" rather than "HKU-published journals". Notably, a search of the platform's journal list shows that the Hong Kong Law Journal from section 1.1 above is not included; the law titles available are mainly professional publications such as Hong Kong Lawyer and Law Lectures for Practitioners. Readers should not assume that an HKU-published journal is necessarily archived in full on the platform — the two are separate criteria.

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# VII. Common Misattributions (Counter-Examples)

The following journals have titles containing "Hong Kong" or otherwise suggesting a Hong Kong connection; they have been verified as not published by HKU and are explicitly excluded to avoid misattribution:

⚠ Not found / incomplete: The number of journals published or edited by HKU faculties and research centres changes from year to year. This article records only those whose ownership can be confirmed from official first-hand pages of the institution or publisher; several further journals in education, social sciences, and the humanities, or co-edited with external publishers, are not exhaustively listed here. Readers seeking a complete list should consult the official disclosures of the relevant HKU faculties and research centres.

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# VIII. A Comparative Typology: Four Models of "HKU Journal" Evolution

Drawing the seven sections above together, HKU-related journals can be roughly grouped into four models according to how ownership has evolved over time, allowing readers to place any given journal at a glance:

The practical point of this framework: to decide whether a journal is an "HKU journal", one cannot simply look at its current title or current publisher. One must check whether the owning institution changed over the journal's history and whether publishing and distribution have been outsourced. Take the HKU Journal of Chinese Studies: searching only under its current name would easily miss the full arc of its 1954 founding and its two successive owning institutions, the Institute of Oriental Studies and the Centre of Asian Studies. Conversely, seeing the names of commercial publishers such as Routledge, Springer, or World Scientific and concluding "not an HKU journal" would wrongly rule out titles like APJPA and ABR, where HKU retains editorial control.

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# IX. Cross-References

• HKU Press and flagship works → hku-press-and-flagship-works.md
• The broader context of HKU's academic publishing system → hku-press-and-academic-publishing.md
• Library system and special collections → libraries-and-museums.md
• The HKU library system in detail → hku-libraries-system.md
• Fung Ping Shan Library and Museum → fung-ping-shan-library-museum.md
• Individual faculties (including the Law Faculty and the School of Chinese) → ../01-academics/
• The broader context of Hong Kong higher education → hk-higher-ed-context.md

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