Thought Leadership

Professor Vivian W.Q. Lou begins her tenure as Head of the Department of Social Work and Social Administration (SWSA) with a vision of translating policy into practical solutions that improve lives.

Professor Vivian W.Q. Lou assumed the position of Head of the Department of Social Work and Social Administration in the Faculty of Social Sciences (FoSS) at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) on 1 July 2026.

“It’s my honour to take up this role,” she says. “Our department has a very solid and strong history, and I’m standing on the shoulders of my former leaders and also my colleagues.”

Initial Priorities

As she embarks on her new role, Professor Lou’s first priority is to spend time meeting and talking to professors, lecturers and teachers, as well as administrative and IT staff. This reflects her intention to lead in a collaborative style, with a focus on reaching decisions that will make the department stronger, allow it to generate higher quality teaching and scholarship, and achieve greater impact.

“We have a very high ranking in terms of university education, but what does that mean to the people who work here every day? What makes them excited? What are the things they really treasure and feel proud of? And what are their expectations, or maybe some worries, such as AI? We have to think about how our curriculum can be reformed or adjusted to fulfil the needs of students who need to navigate the AI work environment, and also address the needs of our colleagues in this regard,” she says.

Policy That Meets People’s Needs

These discussions will help ensure that the department reaches outwards in meaningful ways to improve the wellbeing of the general public.

“I hope that we can become a hub that really achieves the reality of the idea ‘policy meets people’,” she says. “That means working on solutions that deliver meaningful impact and address the unmet needs of the general public and translate to people’s wellbeing.”

Another priority is building the department’s reputation beyond academia and the social work field, and forging connections in the wider community including with alumni and employers.

“I think we have done a great job, but we can do better in terms of networking and telling good stories about what we have been doing. I will follow more proactive strategies to reach these stakeholders and also to understand their needs,” explains Professor Lou.

She also plans to ensure that the department’s research agenda is more closely aligned with the priorities of the University and the Faculty.

“We have already started to do this, but our website still shows a traditional understanding of our research cluster, so I will engage with all my colleagues to work out some new strategies for our research focus,” she adds.

Students form the core of the department’s focus as they are the ones who will one day have direct contact with vulnerable people in society through their work in sectors such as education, welfare and health and turning the department’s work into action that improves lives.

“We have the responsibility to provide high-quality education to nurture our youngsters so that they can become future leaders,” she says.

Path to the Top

Professor Lou has followed that path from student to leader herself. She first visited HKU to spend a month here while pursuing a Master of Education (Social Psychology) at East China Normal University in Shanghai.

It turned out to be a lightbulb experience that set the path for her future career.

“At HKU, I started to understand that scholarship is about doing research and publishing papers. During that month, I successfully drafted a manuscript and later published it, which was so exciting for me. I said, ‘Wow, this is something I really want to do’,” she recalls.

Because the social work discipline was basically suspended in China from the late 1960s until the early 2000s, there was no social work study, and Professor Lou had no clear idea at the time about what social work was.

“But when I visited here, I found it fantastic, because people were doing very grounded work, very practical interventions,” she says. “I thought, this is a good thing and I would love to learn how to do it.”

She applied to HKU and followed the academic path of her thesis supervisor, completing her PhD in Social Work and Social Administration, which would later lead her to direct the Sau Po Centre on Ageing, a post she has held since 2015. After graduating, she worked as a demonstrator in the SWSA Department before becoming an assistant professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. She returned to HKU in 2009, and now leads the department that first sparked her interest in the field.

Mastering Ageing and Wellbeing

Outside of work, Professor Lou practises tai chi and calligraphy, two hobbies she took up purposefully, in line with her own advice in her book, “Seven Resources for Lifelong Wellbeing and Retirement Planning: The Golden Age Playbook”.

 “When I reached 45, I started to reflect on what are the few things I really want to do for my whole life, that I can do every day, or from time to time, and can do alone or with other people. I did some analysis and decided on these two, which are rooted in Chinese culture, and also give me a chance to revisit some history books.”

It’s this kind of advance planning that can help make later life satisfying, she explains.

“Just as you make decisions in your career, you have to make decisions in your later life. So, it is better to prepare, so that you can have a sense of mastery of your future.”

Contributing writer: Liana Cafolla