Yantai University Law School traces its origins to the Department of Law, established in 1984 with the support of the Peking University Law Department. It was one of fewer than twenty law departments in China at the time and was reorganised into a faculty in 1999. The first head of the department was Professor Yang Diansheng, a prison law scholar from Peking University. Subsequently, civil law expert Professor Guo Mingrui, criminal procedure law expert Professor Wang Jiancheng, and civil law scholar Professor Fang Shaokun served as department heads and deans.
The Law School has long been recognized for its distinguished faculty team led by renowned scholars. Now, the School has 75 full-time faculty members, including 19 professors, 24 associate professors, 6 international faculty members and 27 faculty members have overseas study or visiting experience. Our faculty honors include two faculty members recognized as National Teaching Masters and holders of national titles such as “Cultural Master and ‘Four Batches’ of Talents” by the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, “National Candidate for the New Century Hundred-Thousand-Ten Thousand Talent Project”, and candidates for the first and second levels of the “Hundred-Thousand-Ten Thousand Talent Project”. Additionally, three faculty members have been awarded the Special Government Allowance of the State Council. At the provincial level, four faculty members have been recognized as Experts with Outstanding Contributions (Middle-aged and Young), and four have been honored as Shandong Provincial Teaching Masters. One member has been awarded the titles of Shandong Social Science Rising Scholar and Young Taishan Scholar. Two faculty members have served as members of the National Teaching Guidance Committee for Law Programmes under the Ministry of Education. Two have been recognized as National Excellent Teachers. Furthermore, the Civil and Commercial Law Teaching Team has been rated as a “National Teaching Team” by the Ministry of Education.
The School offers two undergraduate programmes: Law and Intellectual Property. Since 2013, it has collaboratively offered an undergraduate programme in Law (Criminal Information Analysis) with Western Oregon University, USA. In the 2023 “Soft Science Chinese University Major Rankings”, the Law programme was rated Grade A, and the Intellectual Property programme was rated Grade B+.
Now, the School has 1,627 full-time students, including 1,368 undergraduates and 259 postgraduates. To date, it has cultivated over 7,500 undergraduates and more than 3,200 postgraduates. More than 20 graduates have become distinguished law professors, doctoral supervisors, and Young Yangtze River Scholars. A significant number of alumni have become backbone force of judicial organs and lawyer profession.
The School regards talent cultivation as its primary mission and has long been committed to professional development and teaching reform, achieving remarkable results. It has been approved for six national professional development platforms, including: the Ministry of Education’s Feature Point of Law Programme (2007), the Base for Educating Outstanding Legal Talent (2012), the Off-Campus Practical Education Base for University Students (2013), the Comprehensive Reform Pilot Programme (2013), the National First-Class Undergraduate Law Programme (2019), and the National First-Class Undergraduate Intellectual Property Programme (2020). The School has also been approved for four national courses, including National Elite Courses, National Elite Resource Sharing Courses, and National First-Class Courses. Faculty have published seven national planning textbooks and received eight ministerial/provincial textbook awards.
Building on its longstanding tradition of practical education and summarizing experience in Anglo-American law instruction, the School aims to cultivate application-oriented and interdisciplinary outstanding legal professionals with cross-cultural communication skills. Leveraging a series of national and provincial projects, it has established an integrated training mechanism which combines a basic education platform, a practical training platform, and an international education platform, and has formed a distinctive “One Body, Two Wings” training model. By integrating curricular and extracurricular activities, on-campus and off-campus resources, domestic and international elements, the School has broadened its training channels and pioneered a new path that actively utilizes high-quality external resources to cultivate outstanding legal talents, then significantly enhanced the quality of education. These efforts have been recognized with one Second Prize for National Teaching Achievement Award and 16 Provincial Teaching Achievement Awards, including seven first prizes. Students have won major discipline competition awards such as the National Second Prize in the “Challenge Cup” competition and the national championship in the International Criminal Court Moot Court Competition.
The School possesses exceptional resources for talent cultivation. It features a high-standard, fully-equipped moot court and practical laboratories. The school also houses a 160-square-meter specialized law library, stocking over 85,000 volumes of Chinese and foreign-language legal literature and 32 types of domestic and international periodicals, and it provides access to prominent legal databases such as Westlaw, HeinOnline, and Peking University Founder Law Database. Furthermore, a notable facility is the Zhang Jinfan Reading Room, established through a generous 1-million-yuan donation from Professor Zhang Jinfan—Lifetime Professor of China University of Political Science and Law, and a foundational scholar in Chinese legal history.
The School has implemented comprehensive measures to advance academic research. An incentive mechanism for academic innovation has been established to reward high-level scholarly output. The School also has strengthened the development of academic platforms and research teams, fostering collaborative synergy to enhance the overall research capacity of the discipline. And a publication fund has been set up to support the issuance of high-quality academic monographs. Additionally, in collaboration with the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the School has established prestigious academic exchange platforms such as the Pendulum Forum on Sino-European Private Law, facilitating international cooperative research initiatives.
The School has long been renowned for its research in Civil and Commercial Law, with particular expertise in Property Law, Contract Law, Inheritance Law, and Tort Liability Law. It is recognized as a member of the Chinese Civil Code Research Consortium by the China Law Society. The faculty has secured four major and key projects under the National Social Science Fund. Their research achievements have been included in the National Achievements Library of Philosophy and Social Sciences, and over 30 papers have been published in top-tier Chinese journals such as Social Sciences in China, Chinese Legal Science, and Chinese Journal of Law. Additionally, the School has received five Outstanding Research Achievement Awards in Higher Education Institutions from the Ministry of Education, two Major Provincial Social Science Achievement Awards, and three faculty members have been honored with the Shandong Social Science Outstanding Contribution Award.
The School obtained approval for its Master of Civil and Commercial Law programme in 1998. This was followed by the authorization of the Master of Law programme in 2003 and the first-class discipline Master of Law degree in 2006. In the two most recent national discipline evaluations, the law discipline has consistently been rated in Category B. Civil and Commercial Law is recognized as a Key Discipline and a Distinctive Key Discipline of Shandong Province. In 2020, the Law discipline was approved for High-Level Advantageous & Distinctive Construction Discipline of Shandong Province. It was further approved for Precision Cultivation for PhD of Law Authorization Site in Shandong Province in 2022. A significant milestone was achieved in 2024, with the official approval of the first-class discipline PhD of Law programme.
The School has deeply engaged in national and regional legislative and legal services, achieving significant progress in its capacity for social contribution. It participated in the drafting and consultation processes for multiple fundamental civil laws, including the Contract Law of the People’s Republic of China and the Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China. The School was selected as one of the 12 drafting units commissioned by the Legislative Affairs Commission of the NPC Standing Committee for the proposed draft of the Contract Law and served as one of the three leading institutions for the Succession of the Civil Code Compilation Project.
The School has been approved for the National Intellectual Property Training (Shandong) Base, a Local Legislative Research Base for the Shandong Provincial People’s Congress Standing Committee, a Legislative Research Base for the Shandong Provincial Department of Justice, and a Legislative Research Base for the Yantai Municipal People’s Congress. In collaboration with the Yantai Municipal People’s Congress Standing Committee, it co-established the Yantai Local Legislation Institute. These successfully supported Yantai University’s designation as an Intellectual Property Pilot University and assisted Yantai City in becoming a National Key City for the Construction of an Intellectual Property Operation and Service System. In partnership with Yantai City, it also established the Yantai Intellectual Property College. Furthermore, five faculty members have served as legal advisors to the Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government, or as members of the Provincial Expert Committee for Strategic Consultation on Social Construction.
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