Dezhou University is a full-time comprehensive undergraduate university directly under the Shandong Provincial Government. Founded in 1971, it is located in Dezhou City, Shandong Province, which is known as the "Entrance to Beijing" and the " Thoroughfares to Everywhere".

It covers an area of 2021 mu, with a construction area of 682,000 square meters. The total value of its teaching and research equipment amounts to 222 million yuan. There are 72 undergraduate majors covering 11 disciplines including economics, law, education, literature, art, history, science, engineering, agriculture, medicine, and management. There are 26,151 full-time undergraduate students and students for associate degree, and 152 graduate students cultivated jointly with other universities. There are 1636 faculty members, including 1306 full-time teachers, 114 professors, 517 associate professors, 104 part-time doctoral and master tutors, and 987 teachers with doctoral or master degrees. We vigorously implement the "Tianqu Talent" project, introducing 2 scholars from the National "Thousand Talents Program", 1 from the National "Ten Thousand Talents Program", 2 from the Mount Taishan Scholar Program, and 1 from the New-Century Talent Program of the Ministry of Education.

We adhere to the central status of teaching, and take talent cultivation as our central task. There are 1 national specialty major, 1 national first-class major, 1 national comprehensive reform experimental major, and 1 national off-campus practical education base. It has been approved as one of the universities to implement national-level college students' innovation and entrepreneurship training programs. There are 6 specialty majors of Shandong Province, 8 first-class majors of Shandong Province, 12 provincial- and ministerial-level major construction projects such as high-level application-oriented project construction major groups of Shandong Province, 5 provincial-level excellent teaching teams, 36 provincial-level high-quality courses, and 20 provincial-level teaching achievement prizes, including 4 first prizes and 6 second prizes. We won the grand prize in the first national university ideological and political theory teaching demonstration. Since the beginning of the 13th Five-Year Plan period, a total of 184 national college student innovation and entrepreneurship training programs have been approved. The students have published 751 papers under the guidance of their teachers, among which 5 were included in SCI, 5 in EI, and 34 published in leading journals. And 131 patents have been approved. The students have won 41 awards in international scientific and cultural competitions for college students. Our students were Meritorious Winners in succession in the Mathematical Contest in Modeling for College Students held in the U.S. Our students won 3820 national contest awards.

We strive to improve the level of discipline construction and scientific research. There are 1 Provincial Key Laboratory, 2 Provincial Engineering Laboratories, 7 Provincial Key Disciplines, Key Laboratories, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Bases, and 2 Provincial Key Disciplines of Culture, Art and Science. Since the beginning of the 13th Five-Year Plan period, the faculty has taken charge of 356 vertical scientific research projects, including 28 national scientific research projects such as those of the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the National Social Science Foundation of China. The faculty has published 1160 papers, including 261 included in SCI, EI, SSCI, A&HCI and CSSCI.57 academic works have been published. 212 patents for invention have been approved.

We persevere in seeking support through service and promoting development through collaboration. To do better in social services, we have established several research platforms and teams, such as "Regional Cultural Research Center", "Local Literature Research Center", "Rural Revitalization Research Institute", and "Dezhou Rural Teacher Development Alliance". We signed comprehensive cooperation agreements with some counties and cities of Dezhou, organized activities such as scientific research collaboration, technical services, decision-making consultation, cooperative education, cultural services, and platform co-construction, provided enterprises with scientific research achievements transfer and transformation projects, and co-constructed social service platforms, such as research centers and joint laboratories, with enterprises and institutions. Taking projects as the starting point, the platform as the basis, the team as the support, we have strengthened the school-enterprise cooperation and docking, and actively served the construction of major projects such as new and old kinetic energy transformation, rural revitalization, poverty alleviation through education and construction of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei coordinated development demonstration zone.

The university carries forward an internationalized school-running strategy, and has cooperated with 70 universities in 18 countries and regions including the United Kingdom, Russia, the United States, Poland, South Korea, Malaysia, and China's Taiwan. Cooperative projects include cooperatively-run schools, exchange of teachers and students, credit transfer, mutual degree education, scientific research exchange, and cultural exchange. Relying on the China Scholarship Council's excellent projects, Sino-foreign cooperative education programs, and credit transfer programs, more than a thousand students were selected to study and exchange in universities abroad, and a large number of application-oriented talents with an international perspective have been cultivated. Efforts are made to improve the internationalization of the teaching staff. Every year, outstanding young teachers are selected to go abroad for further studies, academic visits or academic conferences. Some outstanding experts, such as the academician team of the Russian Academy of Sciences have been invited to teach and do some cooperative researches with our university. The "China-Malaysia Ancient Maritime Silk Road Yi-Jing Research Centre" has been set up. The "Sino-Russian Biophysics Frontier Interdisciplinary Research Laboratory" has been jointly set up with the Russian Academy of Sciences. The "Chinese Traditional Culture Communication Research Center" has also been set up jointly with the University of Chester. Being one of the first Shandong Province Foreign Affairs Research and Development Think Tank Construction Units, our university was approved as the "Dezhou-ASEAN Research Center" of Shandong Province Foreign Affairs Research and Development Think Tank. In 2019, we recruited the first batch of international students with academic qualifications, realized the improvement and breakthrough of the education level of international students, and served the country's cause of international students' study in China at a higher level.

In the new era, we embark on a new journey. Facing the strategic decision of structural adjustment of higher education, and the new requirements of innovation-driven strategies and regional economic and social development, our university will continue to deepen the student-oriented and application-oriented school-running philosophy, continue to deepen comprehensive reforms, and strengthen intensive development. Our aim is to promote the high-quality development of university, and to build a local high-level application-oriented university.

(Updated in January, 2020)