Established in 1958, Qinghai University is a comprehensive university with four major disciplines, namely, engineering, agriculture, medicine and management, and coordinated with development of other disciplines. The university is jointly constructed by the Ministry of Education and Qinghai Province, and assisted directly by five well-known universities such as the Tsinghua University, the Northwest A&F University, China University of Geosciences, East China University of Science & Technology and Peking Union Medical College. It is also enlisted as one of the key construction universities of the National “211 Project”.

Qinghai University comprises 15 colleges/schools, 26 departments and 14 research institutes. The university covers an area of 2 square kilometers, and has more than 20,000 full time students and 4,600 staff members.

Qinghai University actively promotes the cooperation between enterprises, research institutes and higher education institutions, and actively serves the national strategy and regional economic and social development. The disciplines are closely related to the traditional industries and emerging strategic industries related to the Sanjiangyuan ecological protection and the Qaidam circular economy construction that the country and Qinghai Province are promoting. It has formed distinct disciplinary advantages and school-running characteristics in Sanjiangyuan ecological protection, plateau agriculture and animal husbandry, high altitude medicine, Tibetan medicine, salt lake chemical industry, renewable energy and advanced materials. The university has fostered a large number of applied talents for Qinghai economic construction and society, and made positive contributions to the development of Qinghai .

With the support and help of the Ministry of Education, the Qinghai Provincial Government, and the counterpart assistance of the four leading universities, the university has achieved leaping development in past two decades. The school insists on opening up to outside and continuously strengthens foreign exchanges and cooperation. It has signed exchange and cooperation MoUs with universities and institutes in more than 20 countries and regions such as the  United States , Britain , Australia , New Zealand , Japan , South Korea , and Taiwan , Hong Kong and Macau . It has launched a new round of “Three Brothers” cooperation of Tsinghua University- Qinghai University-the Auckland University .