Prof. Li Li, Lilly is a Professor in the School of Fashion and Textile of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Board of Director of The Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel, Associate Director of PolyU Academy for Interdisciplinary Research and Fellow of Royal Society of Arts. In addition to her academic qualifications, she has acquired many years of practical experience as a senior designer and eventually as the design director of a company before coming to PolyU. Her research is characterized by a creative economy, design thinking, and interdisciplinary design methods, which she applied to a variety of issues including the implementation of smart functional textile technologies and advanced manufacturing processes. As demonstrated in her work, Lilly has been able to utilize design not just for product conception, but to develop its potential as an interdisciplinary tool that provides constructive solutions and innovations across the entire value chain, whether meeting particular market needs or solving technological defects. Her method of interdisciplinary design generates technological innovation via the synergistic interaction of knowledge from various disciplines, which not only accelerates the development of the creative sector, but also integrates different innovative research methods in a new direction towards viable solutions.

Both academia and the textile industry have acknowledged Lilly’s research work for its positive impact on the textile industry and the greater creative economy.

She has successfully secured 70 projects worth a total amount of over HK$ 100 million (around US$ 13 million), published over 100 research articles in world-leading and top-tier textile journals, and held 27 patents. With her achievement, she has won 38 prestigious international awards, including the Golden Award of the 46th and 47th International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva for two consecutive years. She has also been awarded the 2022 & 2021 Faculty Outstanding Technology Transfer Award – Industry (Individual – Technology Transfer Activities), and the Faulty Awards for Outstanding Achievement (Individual - Research and Scholarly Activities) 2021 for recognizing her remarkable research achievements. Her academic research outcomes have also been successfully trademarked and licensed to the industry for commercial use. She has developed technologies and products that have expanded into mass production or various commercial purposes with a total knowledge transfer value of over HK$300 million. Her research has been adopted across a spectrum of arenas, including the fashion retail and textile industry, agriculture, healthcare, electronics, lifestyle as well as archaeology. Notably, her work has been employed by the Committee for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

Lilly also has a distinguished and longstanding record of service to the university, academic community, and society. She serves as a specialist member of the Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications (HKCAAVQ); as well as Design Admission Panel Members and Mentor (DAP) for the Hong Kong Design Centre’s Design Incubation Programme (DIP) under the SAR Government’s CreateSmart Initiative (CSI).