About Journal of Ocean University of China

Journal of Ocean University of China

Journal of Ocean University of China, also styled Journal of Ocean University of China (Oceanic and Coastal Sea Research), is an English-language scientific journal based in Qingdao, Shandong, China. It is one of the official journals of Ocean University of China, one of China's principal universities for marine science and fisheries, and it was established in 2002 to present research in marine science and technology to a wider international readership. The journal is published by Science Press in Beijing, with Springer as its international publishing partner, and articles carry copyright lines in the names of Ocean University of China, Science Press and Springer-Verlag.

The journal's reason for existing is closely tied to its home institution. Ocean University of China is a comprehensive university whose distinctive strengths lie in oceanography and fisheries, so a general marine-science journal carrying the university's name serves both as a record of work done in Qingdao and as a channel through which marine researchers in China and abroad can publish in English. Its pages range well beyond physical oceanography alone, covering the life sciences, fisheries, engineering, environmental science, chemistry, geology and the information sciences as they apply to the sea.

Overview and identifying details

The journal's print ISSN is 1672-5182, and its electronic ISSN is recorded as 1993-5021. Its Chinese domestic publication number is CN 37-1415/P. Its standard abbreviated title is J. Ocean Univ. China, and its DOI prefix, visible across its Springer-distributed articles, is 10.1007/s11802. Bibliographic listings record the publisher as Science Press, the publication country as China, and subject categories in ocean engineering and oceanography. A 2025 article, for example, appeared in volume 24, issue 6, showing the annual volume numbering that has run continuously since the journal's early years.

The editorial office is at Ocean University of China in Qingdao. Listings for the journal give its address on Songling Road in Qingdao and the university's editorial office contact details, and manuscript submission has been handled through the Manuscript Central system under the journal's JOUC code. That Qingdao base matters: Qingdao is a major Chinese port and marine-research city on the Yellow Sea, and the journal is produced from within the university whose research community forms a large part of its author and reader base.

History and establishment in 2002

The journal was established in 2002 as one of the official journals of Ocean University of China. Its own aims-and-scope statement explains the founding choice of language: it is published in English so as to serve a wider circle of readers internationally, rather than only a domestic Chinese-language audience. The timing is notable, because 2002 was also the year in which the university itself adopted its present name — in October 2002 the Ministry of Education ratified the name Ocean University of China, replacing Ocean University of Qingdao.

The subtitle, Oceanic and Coastal Sea Research, signals the journal's framing from the start. It was not conceived as a narrow bulletin for one department, but as a university-wide outlet for oceanic and coastal research. Scopus coverage listings show the title recorded from 2003 and then continuously from 2007 onward, reflecting its establishment phase and its subsequent regular publication history. Over more than two decades it has continued under the same title, building a back catalogue that runs to volume 24 by 2025.

The university behind the journal

Ocean University of China traces its origin to Private Qingdao University, established in 1924 and described by the university as the first modern institution of higher education established by the Chinese in Shandong Province. Its early students studied on the site of the former German Bismarck Barracks, on what is now the Yushan campus. In 1930 National Qingdao University was established on the original site, and marine-related disciplines such as coastal biology, oceanography and meteorology were introduced at an early stage in its development.

The institution went through successive identities as National Shandong University and as part of Shandong University, before Shandong College of Oceanography was established in Qingdao in March 1959 from the departments that remained there. It was renamed Ocean University of Qingdao in January 1988, and Ocean University of China in October 2002. The university is affiliated with the Ministry of Education of China and is part of Project 211, Project 985 and the Double First-Class Construction. It celebrated its centenary on 25 October 2024. A journal founded by such an institution inherits a research base that is unusually concentrated: few universities anywhere organise so much of their work around the ocean.

Scope across marine science and technology

The journal covers various branches of marine science and technology. Its stated scope lists meteorology, environmental sciences and engineering, life sciences, fishery sciences, food sciences and food engineering, medication, chemistry and chemical engineering, geology, remote sensing, and information technology and management. In the concise terms of the directory description, that means oceanography, marine life science, fisheries, aquaculture, marine engineering and marine meteorology are all within its remit.

That breadth is deliberate. Marine problems rarely sit inside one discipline: a study of a harmful algal bloom may involve ocean circulation, chemistry, satellite remote sensing and fisheries management at once. By accepting work across the full range of marine science and technology, the journal provides a home for interdisciplinary papers that might fit awkwardly in a highly specialised title, while still keeping the ocean and coastal seas as the unifying subject. Its Scopus subject classification in oceanography and ocean engineering captures the core of that scope, even though the published contents range more widely.

What the journal publishes

Manuscripts, once accepted, are published in the forms of research papers, notes, reports, letters, reviews or overviews. The journal welcomes contributions from China and abroad — an explicit invitation that matches its English-language, internationally distributed format. Recent contents illustrate the range in practice: a 2025 paper estimated wave design parameters in the ice-retreat area of the Barents Sea, work by authors at the College of Engineering of Ocean University of China that combines ocean engineering with Arctic sea conditions far from Qingdao itself.

That example shows two things about the journal's character. First, its geography is not limited to Chinese waters; the ocean systems it covers are global. Second, engineering sits comfortably alongside natural science in its pages, from wave parameters for design purposes to the biological and chemical studies that make up much of its marine life-science content. For readers, the mix makes a single issue a useful cross-section of what a large ocean university is working on at any given time.

Publishing arrangement with Science Press and Springer

The journal is published by Science Press, Beijing, China, on behalf of Ocean University of China, and distributed internationally in partnership with Springer. Article PDFs carry the joint copyright line of Ocean University of China, Science Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, and the journal's content is reachable through Springer's linking system under its ISSN. This kind of arrangement is common for Chinese university journals of its generation: a domestic publisher handles production in China, while an international partner gives the title visibility and distribution in libraries and databases outside China.

The editorial responsibility, however, remains in Qingdao. Listings name the editorial office of the Journal of Ocean University of China as the editing body, sponsored by Ocean University of China, with an editor-in-chief drawn from the university's oceanographic community — earlier mastheads name Wen Shengchang (Shengchang Wen) in that role. The combination of a university editorial office, a national science publisher and an international distribution partner explains how a journal produced on Songling Road in Qingdao reaches readers on other continents.

Indexing and bibliographic standing

The journal is indexed in Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-Expanded) and in Scopus, as recorded in its directory description and in the coverage histories maintained by bibliographic services. Scopus coverage is listed as 2003 and 2007 to the present, and SCImago classifies it in ocean engineering and oceanography, where it has been placed in the third quartile in recent years. Those listings matter practically: indexing in SCI-Expanded and Scopus is what makes its articles discoverable in the major citation databases used by marine researchers worldwide, and what allows its authors' work to be counted in university and funder evaluations.

Its metrics should be read in that context. This is a broad, university-based marine journal rather than a small, highly selective specialist title, and its citation indicators reflect a steady flow of papers across many subfields — more than 150 documents a year in recent Scopus-based counts — rather than a handful of heavily cited reviews. For authors in Chinese marine institutions in particular, it offers an SCI-Expanded and Scopus-indexed English-language venue closely aligned with their subject community.

Publication pattern and language

The journal is described in its own aims and scope as a quarterly journal published in English. Its volume numbering is annual — volume 24 corresponds to 2025 — and issue numbering within recent volumes runs to at least six issues, as the 2025 volume's sixth issue shows. Whatever the precise issue cadence in a given year, the pattern is one of regular, continuing publication over more than twenty years, with each volume adding a substantial body of marine research to the record.

The choice of English is central to the journal's identity and is worth distinguishing from its sibling title. Ocean University of China also publishes the Periodical of Ocean University of China, a Chinese-language comprehensive journal first published in 1959 and now monthly, supervised by the Ministry of Education and sponsored by the university. The two titles are different publications: the Journal of Ocean University of China is the English-language, marine-focused international journal established in 2002, while the Periodical is the older Chinese-language general journal. Researchers citing or submitting to one should not confuse it with the other.

Readership and role in Chinese marine research

The journal's readership is the international marine-science community: oceanographers, marine biologists, fisheries and aquaculture scientists, coastal and ocean engineers, marine chemists and geologists, and specialists in marine meteorology and remote sensing. Because it welcomes contributions from abroad as well as from China, its author base is not confined to its home university, but Ocean University of China's own colleges — engineering, marine life sciences, fisheries and others — are a natural core of contributors, as the Barents Sea wave study from its College of Engineering illustrates.

Within China's publishing landscape, the journal occupies a specific niche. China has many marine journals, including Chinese-language titles and specialist English-language titles devoted to single subfields. A university journal that covers the whole of marine science and technology in English, backed by one of the country's principal ocean universities and indexed in SCI-Expanded and Scopus, serves as a general gateway: it is often the place where work from Qingdao's large marine research community first becomes visible to readers outside China.

Why the journal matters

The Journal of Ocean University of China matters because of the institution and the coastline behind it. Qingdao is one of the centres of Chinese ocean science, and Ocean University of China — a Project 985 and Double First-Class university that has organised itself around marine and fisheries sciences since the Shandong College of Oceanography era — produces research at a scale that needs an English-language outlet of its own. Since 2002 this journal has provided it, publishing research papers, notes, reports, letters and reviews across oceanography, marine life science, fisheries, aquaculture, marine engineering and marine meteorology.

For librarians and researchers building a picture of Chinese marine publishing, its identifiers summarise it cleanly: ISSN 1672-5182, CN 37-1415/P, published by Science Press with Springer on behalf of Ocean University of China in Qingdao, established in 2002, indexed in SCI-Expanded and Scopus. Titles like this rarely attract attention outside their field, but within marine science it is a durable piece of infrastructure — a quarterly English-language record, now running to its third decade, of how one of China's principal ocean universities and its wider community study the sea.