Shandong Jiaotong University

Shandong University of Science and Technology (SDUST), founded in 1951 in Qingdao, is a multidisciplinary university with particular strength in engineering and the sciences.

Qingdao University sits on a coastal campus at the foot of Fushan Mountain, with views across to the Yellow Sea. Founded in 1987, it is one of China’s earlier institutions approved to enrol international students and hosts an HSK test centre. The university comprises 22 colleges offering 94 undergraduate majors, alongside 35 doctoral and 178 master’s programmes across disciplines including medicine, engineering, law, arts, and social sciences. Its student body exceeds 40,000. Qingdao’s mild climate, seaside setting, and layered cultural history—shaped by German colonial architecture, maritime trade, and modern academic life—form part of the university’s everyday context. International engagement is embedded in its structure, with formal partnerships spanning over 20 countries and regular teaching contributions from visiting academics worldwide.

Qilu University of Technology (QLUT) is in Jinan, Shandong — known as the City of Springs — between the Yellow River to the north and Mount Tai to the south. The main campus covers more than 2,000 acres in the Western University Science Park. History: founded in 1948; upgraded as Shandong Polytechnic University in 1978; among the first bachelor’s degree-granting units in 1982; master’s degree-granting from 1998; Master of Fine Arts authorization in 2009; among Shandong’s first “Featured University Cultivating Applied Talents” cohort in 2012; renamed Qilu University of Technology on 18 April 2013 with Ministry of Education approval. Disciplines: 71 undergraduate majors across Engineering, Science, Liberal Arts, Economics, Management, Law, and Art )

Founded in 1924, Ocean University of China is located in Qingdao, a coastal city on the Shandong Peninsula with a mild climate and historic maritime character. Its position by the Yellow Sea informs its long-standing emphasis on marine science, atmospheric science, and related disciplines, while also maintaining teaching and research programmes in economics, law, engineering, pharmacy, agronomy, and the humanities. The university operates across two campuses in Qingdao, each embedded within the city’s academic and cultural environment. It hosts approximately 27,000 students, including over 1,300 international students from more than fifty countries, and is staffed by around 2,500 faculty members. Academic work spans eight disciplinary areas, with degrees offered at undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral levels. The university falls under the direct administration of China’s Ministry of Education.

It focuses on applied talent cultivation and offers bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral programs, with the right to recommend postgraduates exempt from admission examinations. Jinan is the provincial capital (“city of springs”), near Mount Tai and the Yellow River; Shandong is described as China’s third-largest economic province and the home of Confucianism. The university has four campuses covering over 2.43 million square meters, 26 schools, and 3 post-doctoral research centers. Disciplines include Economics, Law, Education, Literature, History, Science, Technology, Management, and Art. Six disciplines, including Chemistry and Material Science, are in the ESI top 1%. It has cooperative relationships with 120 international counterparts in countries including the US, UK, Germany, France, Canada, Australia, Russia, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. More than 4,000 international students have graduated from the university.

Shandong University is among the founding institutions of modern Chinese higher education. Its main body, Shandong Imperial College (Shandong Da Xue Tang), was established in 1901 as the second national university in China after the Imperial University of Peking, and the first university founded and run under a chartered constitution. The university has 8 campuses in three cities — Jinan, Qingdao, and Weihai — covering over 533 hectares. It has 4 affiliated hospitals, 3 non-subordinate affiliated hospitals, and 11 teaching hospitals. Teaching and administrative staff number about 10,200 (including Weihai Campus and 3 affiliated hospitals). Full-time students total about 60,000: 41,437 undergraduates, 16,607 postgraduates, and 2,456 international students. Faculty include 1,107 professors, among them 907 Ph.D. supervisors. As a comprehensive university, it covers 13 general disciplines: philosophy, economics, law, education, literature, history, science, engineering, agriculture, medicine, military science, management, and fine arts. It has 40 first-level doctoral programs, 55 first-level master’s programs, 28 professional doctoral and master’s programs, 116 undergraduate programs, and 38 mobile post-doctoral research stations. Key discipline figures include 2 national key first-level disciplines (including 8 second-level), 14 national key second-level disciplines, 3 key national second-level disciplines (incubating), and 70 provincial key disciplines )