A paper co-authored by Lam Cho Yi and Ye Jing, undergraduate students from the Faculty of Education, and Xue Dongmei, a doctoral student from the Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences (ICMS) of the University of Macau (UM), won a ‘new talent award’ in the ‘Macao University Students’ Academic Essay Competition in Celebration of the 25th Anniversary of Macao’s Reunification with the Motherland’.

The award-winning paper, titled ‘Factors Influencing Participation in Experiential Learning Activities in Intercultural Communities under “One Country, Two Systems” and Model Construction: A Case Study of University of Macau Residential Colleges’, explores the motivations behind students’ participation in experiential learning activities in residential colleges under the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ policy. It proposes a ‘Cross-Cultural Community Experiential Learning Participation Model’ and highlights how students, influenced by a sense of belonging, participate in activities, integrate into residential colleges, and ultimately reshape their values. The findings provide important insights for the development of whole-person education and the cultivation of patriotic talent in Macao’s higher education institutions. The paper was supervised by Bian Ying, assistant director and doctoral supervisor of ICMS.

The competition was jointly organised by the Macao Scholars Development Association and Macau Student Home, under the guidance of the Beijing Office of the Central People’s Government in the Macao SAR, Office of the Macao SAR in Beijing, and the Social and Cultural Affairs Department of the Research Institute of Hong Kong and Macao under the Hong Kong and Macao Work Office of the CPC Central Committee. More than 500 students from over 70 higher education institutions at home and abroad participated in the competition. The judging panel consisted of renowned scholars from over 30 higher education institutions and research institutes in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macao. They selected 75 outstanding papers from 255 submissions after rigorous preliminary, secondary, and final reviews. All the winning papers were compiled into a book and published by Macau Academic Journal and the Commercial Press, and copies were presented to the National Library of China and a number of university libraries.