Professor Lei CHEN elected as chair of VLDB Endowment
Professor Lei CHEN, dean of the Information Hub at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), has been elected as the chair of the Very Large Data Base Endowment Inc. (VLDB Endowment) for the 2026-27 term — becoming the first academic leader from China to hold this prestigious position in the nearly half-century history of the organization.
CHEN's election marks the leading position of Chinese scholars in the global data science research field, which is broadly recognized by the international academic community.
The VLDB Endowment, established in 1975, is one of the most significant international organizations in the field of database. It oversees the management of the world-renowned VLDB Conference, the authoritative VLDB Journal and a series of academic activities. The organization has a board of 21 elected trustees who are the legal guardians of the endowment's charter and activities. They are composed of leading scholars from Asia, North America and Europe, who are responsible for promoting academic innovation, international collaboration and talent development in the database field.
Since joining the board in 2018, CHEN has served as the chair of the 2024 VLDB Conference, which was hosted by HKUST(GZ) last year. Led by him, the 50th edition of the conference was a milestone event, attracting a record high number of over 1,400 scholars, including more than 600 international participants.
CHEN's election as the chair of the VLDB Endowment makes him the second Asian scholar, following Singaporean academic Beng Chin OOI, to hold the position. His leadership is expected to further facilitate deep dialogues between China and the world in data science, promoting a fair, open and innovative global academic system.
During his tenure, CHEN aims to focus on three main areas: establishing special funds and awards to support young scholars in cutting-edge research, promoting the allocation of academic resources to Southeast Asia and developing countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative — and enhancing the integration of academic conferences with the industry by leveraging China's industrial development advantages. He envisions transforming the VLDB Conference into a premier event that combines cutting-edge academic research and industrial applications in the international database field.
"True academia should transcend borders." CHEN said. "We should empower more scholars from developing countries to have a voice."
Historically, database research has been concentrated in North America and Europe, but with the rapid development of the internet and artificial intelligence sectors in China, Asia is playing an increasingly important role in database research and applications. In light of this trend, CHEN hopes to establish a "VLDB China" chapter to facilitate deeper exchanges between Chinese scholars and their international counterparts, thereby amplifying the voices of scholars from China and other Asian countries in the database field.
CHEN plans to leverage the Information Hub at HKUST(GZ) and the platform provided by VLDB to take a package of steps to realize the vision. In March, he spearheaded the first "Information Hub + Greater Bay Area Computer Science Institutes Joint Graduate Academic Poster Competition". It attracted participation from graduate students of seven universities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The event showcased cutting-edge research, including works published at top conferences and journals like KDD, VLDB, CVPR, NeurIPS and JSAC.
Following the event, the Information Hub at HKUST(GZ) and the Department of Computing at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University co-hosted the "The Future in an AI-Driven World" Graduate Research Summit. This further provided a platform for HKUST(GZ) students to showcase their research achievements and to enhance their capabilities in academic exchanges. The influence of the Information Hub at HKUST(GZ) in fields such as artificial intelligence, data science and analytics, computational media and arts and the internet of things has been further expanded.
"Currently, the talent pool in the database field at our Information Hub has entered the 'first tier' among domestic universities," CHEN noted. "To go further, we need to both 'bring in' and 'go out'", he said. CHEN emphasized the importance of attracting high-level talent and experts while encouraging young faculty members to actively participate in international academic conferences and to make their voices heard. "Your research should go beyond papers to make personal progress and drive the organization towards long-term development," he added.
CHEN also hopes to capitalize on his election as the new chair of VLDB Endowment as an opportunity to introduce the Greater Bay Area and HKUST(GZ) to more global talent.
