Not long ago on a Tuesday, Club 71 in Central was packed with people, with all eyes on an academic. Lokman Tsui, assistant professor of School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, was giving a speech on the dying of the internet. He covered topics from the concept of the third space like the Parisian salons, to the monitoring and spying on the internet. The audiences held beers in hands, and occasionally they would raise a question and embark a discussion.

At the same time, Chan Sze Chi, senior lecturer of Department of Religion and Philosophy at the Hong Kong Baptist University, was sipping from a glass at Room Bar in Sheung Wan, talking about East meeting West, a topic he has been delving into for years. On this particular night, ten academics were at different bars in Hong Kong, giving speeches whilst drinking. The event was called “Raising the Bar”, a creative idea originated by a bunch of intellectuals in New York.

Universities have long been regarded as ivory towers. Some think that knowledge divides the society into different classes, enlarging economic differences. But the truth is, some scholars have been trying to bring knowledge into the community. Columbia University and New York University used to provide free lectures for the public, but it was not an easy task to bring people into the institutions, due to an inferiority complex, or universities’ distant architecture style. And so the ivory tower remains – the public was left feeling excluded.

In view of this, a group of economists, writers, bankers, actors and doctors initiated “Raising the Bar”, using neighbourhood bars as schools to share insights with the general public, making education a part of a city’s popular culture and turning profound academic topics into lively discussions. These include everything from anatomy, the music genre of Fado to North Korea issues etc. Each session lasts 40 minutes, and the audiences feel freer to raise questions under such interactive atmospheres.

“Raising the Bar” is sponsored by Columbia University and New York University. Participants need to sign up beforehand, but the event itself is free—all the participants have to pay is for their beer. Last April, 50 seminars were held at 50 venues in New York on one single night, from upscale cellars to neighbourhood bars. It was sponsored by Time Out New York, and has attracted 6,000 participants.

The event has expanded from New York to San Francisco, Hong Kong and Sydney, and the organisers are eyeing on Boston and London. They are even thinking of doing “flash schools” on subway trains and turning bars into academic workshops, allowing them to apply for research funding.

In recent years, the western society is more open to carrying out academic exchanges at places like bars and cafés. For instance, The Troubadour in London is a famous bar for poetry discussions, with events to write, read and even debate on related topics. University College London collaborates with the Bright Club and the bar would provide performance training for researchers so that they can present their research results in a lively and humorous way on stage, or even at the Natural History Museum so as to attract more people to pursuit tertiary education. The British Science Association has set up the SciBar, a science school within a bar, to allow scientific exchanges over beer.

Hong Kong has also organised similar events at bars and night clubs, but only during the Hong Kong International Literary Festival, where renowned writers are invited to share writing experiences in bars in Central. But so far it has not become a regular event that happens every week or month, not to mention becoming a “lifestyle” for Hong Kong people.