The motto of the school is "All rivers run into the sea, so take it far". The school was founded in 1924. After private Qingdao University, National Qingdao University, National Shandong University and Shandong University, it developed into Shandong Ocean University in 1959 and was identified as one of the national key comprehensive universities in 1960. 1988 was renamed Qingdao Ocean University.
The school has four campuses, including Laoshan Campus, Yushan Campus and Fushan Campus, covering a total area of more than 2,400 mu. The West Coast Campus covers an area of about 2,800 mu, and the first phase was completed and opened in September 2022. There are 1 department, 20 colleges and 1 basic teaching center. At present, there are more than 34,000 students, including undergraduate students 1.66 million, graduate students 1.39 million, 3,000 doctoral students and 480 foreign students.
There are 4,025 faculty members, including 2,096 full-time teachers, 635 doctoral supervisors, 778 senior professional technicians, 0/.003 deputy senior professional technicians, 6 academicians of China Academy of Sciences and 9 academicians of China Academy of Engineering. The school aims to cultivate high-quality innovative talents with all-round development of morality, intelligence, physique, beauty and labor, national spirit and social responsibility, international vision and sense of cooperation and competition, scientific spirit and humanistic accomplishment, innovative consciousness and practical ability.
It is a special mission to cultivate the leading talents and backbone of the national marine cause. The school follows the undergraduate education concept of "general knowledge as the body, specialized for use", implements the independent course selection system and the qualification system of academic qualifications and graduation majors, and strives to cultivate compound and high-quality talents. Among the graduates, 14 have been elected as academicians of China Academy of Sciences or China Academy of Engineering, and 3 have successively served as directors of the State Oceanic Administration. More than half of the 75 scientists who participated in China's first Antarctic expedition were school graduates.
The school actively supports the construction of Laoshan laboratory and jointly builds a national strategic scientific and technological force. He presided over the construction of the first frontier science center of the Ministry of Education in the field of earth science in China (the frontier science center of deep-sea sphere and earth system) and the first basic science center project in the marine field of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (multi-field, multi-body and multi-scale coupling and its influence mechanism on the performance and safety of marine equipment). State key laboratory has been established.