Qinghai University is located in the historical city of Xining, a well-known summer resort on Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The university was established in 1958, originally under the name “Qinghai Institute of Polytechnic”. In November 1960, its name was changed to Qinghai University by merging with Qinghai Medical College and Qinghai Finance and Economics College, but the name was revoked at the beginning of 1969. In 1971, the name Qinghai Polytechnical and Agricultural College was adopted, with industry and agriculture as its major disciplines. In 1988, it was renamed as Qinghai University. In 1997, Qinghai Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medical College merged. In January 2001, Qinghai University was reconstructed after merging with Qinghai Agriculture and Forestry College, Qinghai Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medical College. and in 2004, Qinghai Medical College merged in to form a new Qinghai University.
At present, Qinghai University has developed into a university of teaching and research giving priority to engineering, agriculture, medicine, management, economics, science, and law. The university covers a total area of over 200 hectares and is now open to the whole world and country.
It has a full-time enrollment of over 25,706 students, of which 4935 are postgraduates. The university has 5,352 teaching and administrative staff (3,161from Qinghai University Affiliated Hospital), of which 42 are State Council's special allowance given experts.
In the past 65 years, Qinghai University has implemented the fundamental task of establishing moral education, and always shoulders the important mission of talent training, scientific research, social service, cultural heritage and innovation, international exchanges and cooperation. Ever since 2001, six top-rated universities, namely Tsinghua University, Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), East China Institute of Chemical Technology, Shanghai Jiaotong University, and Beijing University of Chemical Technology, have been providing paired assistance with Qinghai University, which helped the school to achieve high-quality development. In 2004, it became the "Provincial-Ministerial Co-construction" school jointly built by the Qinghai Provincial Government and the Ministry of Education. In 2008, it became a key construction university of the national "211 project". In 2012, it was one of 14 universities supported by “The Midwest University Comprehensive Strength Promotion Project”. In 2016, it was listed in the first batch of “100 Model Universities of Innovation and Entrepreneurship”. In 2017, it was selected as one of the "world-class disciplines" in China. In 2018, it became a university of “Ministry-Province Cooperation.” In 2019, the series of activities of the Mekong Youth Innovation Competition was entered into the "Large-scale Achievement Exhibition to Celebrate the 70th Anniversary of the Founding of the People's Republic of China". In 2020, it became the "National Civilized Campus". In 2021, the university added four first-level doctoral programs in water resources engineering, herbology, clinical medicine, and Chinese medicine, which ranked third in the number of approved universities in China. In 2022, it was selected as one of the 147 new rounds of "double first-class" construction colleges and universities, and the discipline of ecology was selected as one of the "world-class" construction disciplines again.
The university now has 1 world-level key discipline, 4 national-level key disciplines, and 2 provincial key discipline; 5 first-level Doctoral degree authorization units, 20 first-level Master’s degree authorization units, 1 cross-disciplinary Master’s degree authorized units, over 108 second-level Master’s degree authorized units; 15 categories of Master’s degree authorized units in 87 professional fields. There are 68 undergraduate majors. including 21 national first-class professional construction sites, 16 provincial first-class professional construction sites, 3 national quality video open courses, 12 national first-class courses and 25 provincial first-class courses. 2 national virtual teaching and research offices and 3 provincial virtual teaching and research offices have been approved. There are 4 national teaching teams, 1 national innovative experimental area of talent training mode,1 national experimental teaching demonstration center, 9 national excellence plan projects, 1 national clinical teaching training demonstration center. There are 2 national Huang Danian-style teaching teams, 1 national ideological and political teacher studio and 2 national teachers. There are 13 national scientific research platforms, including 6 national prefix laboratories such as state key laboratories, 1 national crop germplasm resources database, 1 national field scientific observation and research station, 36 ministerial scientific research platforms, 63 provincial scientific research platforms, national university science and technology parks and national new rural development research institutes, and a series of large-scale research facilities of salt lake chemical industry and ecological agriculture and animal husbandry jointly built by some provinces. Since 2016, the school has been approved 3248 scientific research projects, including 11 national key Research and Development projects, with a total of 2.1 billion yuan in scientific research funds and 1104 appraised achievements in scientific research. It has won 1 second prize for national scientific and technological progress, 1 science and technology innovation award from he Liang he Li Foundation, 4 national innovation awards, 143 provincial and ministerial level and above awards, and 3 science and technology major contribution for Qinghai awards. The school insists on opening up and promotes international cooperation and exchanges in all directions, in many fields, with characteristics and at a high level. It has joined the South Asian Association of Southeast Asian Universities, the China-Central and Eastern European University Association, the Thailand-China Education Union, the Lancang-Mekong University Union, the Silk Road University Union and other international academic organizations and alliances. It was selected into the discipline Innovation and Intelligence introduction Program of Colleges and Universities, and was approved as the "Tibetan Medicine International Cooperation Base (Qinghai)". The school has signed cooperation agreements with many world-class universities such as University of Arizona, RWTH Aachen University, University of Science Malaysia and University of Nottingham to train international talents. The school actively promotes the deep integration of industry, education and research, and actively serves the national strategy and regional economic and social development. It has formed distinct disciplinary advantages and school-running characteristics in the ecological protection of Sanjiangyuan, plateau agriculture and animal husbandry, plateau medicine, Tibetan medicine, salt lake chemical industry, new energy and new materials, and trained a large number of applied talents, which has made positive contributions to the economic construction and social development of Qinghai.
On a new historical start, the university adheres to the school motto of " To aim as high as the majestic mountains; To reach as far as the great rivers.", carrys forward the new Qinghai spirit, and endeavors to build the university into a high-level modern university with distinctive features by establishing morality and cultivating people as the foundation, supporting innovation as the strategy, and serving the economic and social development as the guidance.
(Note: The above data is up to April 2024)
