The Marine disciplines in Xiamen University enjoy a long and profound history. Concerning papers were published in the world's top scientific journals “Science” back to the early of 1920s. In 1946, the first Department of Oceanography was founded in Xiamen University. In 1996, the College of Oceanography and Environmental Science was founded and then in 2011, the College of Ocean and Earth Sciences (COE) was established. During its development of nearly 100 years, a number of outstanding scientists such as Xianwen Wu, Chengkui Zeng, Yiyu Chen emerged and made extraordinary contribution to China’s marine science development and talent cultivation. After the reform and opening up, Marine discipline units in Xiamen University were enlisted in the first batch of doctorate authorized units. Nowadays, with the long history and solid foundation of developing traditional Marine disciplines, the COE continues to forge ahead in pursuit of excellence in emerging disciplines and has achieved success in multi-disciplinary crossing research with humanistic science, sociology, engineering, etc.

The COE has several education centers including “National Base for Basic Scientific Research and Higher Education on Marine Sciences”, “National Experimental Center for Education”, Marine Science Characteristic Specialty Center, Fujian Provincial Marine Science Graduate Education Innovation Base, etc. Its marine sciences program is recognized by the Ministry of Education as a top national education program, which includes Ph.D. program in oceanography and Postdoctoral programs in marine biology, marine chemistry, physical oceanography, and marine geology. At present, the college holds 502 undergraduates, 311 master students and 210 PhD students.

The COE is housing 5 departments, which are Physical Oceanography, Marine Biological Science and Technology, Applied Marine Physics and Engineering, Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry and Geological Oceanography. During the past years, the COE is constantly recruiting faculty members with diverse education backgrounds and working experiences. The COE has being constantly recruited a high-level and energetic faculty team. Among them, there are 1 Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2 Chang Jiang Chair Professors, 2 Minjiang Chair Professors, 4 Xiamen University Distinguished Professors, 3 NSFC Excellent Young Scientists Fund, 10 MOE Program for New Century Excellent Talents. The COE has an academic structure, age structure more rational structure of the teaching staff, 95.7% of faculty members with PhD degree, 75.5% with oversea education background and 63.8% are young and middle-aged teachers. The faculty team is an excellent academic group with National Creative Research Groups, the Ministry of Education Innovation Team and the National Excellent Education Team as the core and young teachers as the backbone. Among them, more than 20 professors serve with a key position in SCOR and some other important international academic institutions. A group of young and middle-aged scientists represented by Nianzhi Jiao, Minhan Dai, Kunshan Gao are very active in academic field at home and abroad and has become the main force to promote discipline development. In addition, the COE is capable of undertaking national major scientific research projects as it possesses several first-class national scientific research platforms and talent training bases.

For example, “the State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science” categorized as an excellent state key laboratory during a nation-wide review sponsored by MOST in 2010 and 2015. “Marine Science” is a National Science Talent Training Base and “Ocean and Environment Experiment Teaching Center” is a National Experimental Center for Education. The COE has a “State-Province Joint Engineering Laboratory of Marine Bioproducts and Technology” which was approved to start construction by National Development and Reform Commission, China in Dec. 2015. The college also has an "Underwater Acoustic Communication and Marine Information Technology MOE key Laboratory ", and other provincial scientific research platforms. For the latest five years, representative research projects being presided over by the COE covers “973” National Basic Research Program, “863” National High-Tech Research and Development Program, NSFC Creative Research Groups, and other major research projects. What needs to be mentioned is: the research team "Marine Biogeochemistry: Processes and Mechanisms” is currently the only research group that have obtained national support for three continuous periods and has made research achievements with a broad range of international influence. In recent 5 years, the COE has won 26 provincial prizes and published more than 600 papers in SCI, EI, ISTP, etc. Prof. Nianzhi Jiao and his team proposed a conceptual framework named the “Microbial Carbon Pump (MCP)”, which addressed the importance of microbial processes in carbon storage in the ocean. 3 papers concerning this study were published in “Nature Reviews Microbiology”. The proposed MCP was also reported by “Science” as News Focus, where the MCP is considered to be “The invisible hand behind a vast carbon reservoir”. Researches on “Air-Sea CO2 exchanges in low latitude marginal seas-fluxes and controls” from Prof. Minhan Dai et al. won the first place at the 2009 Ministry of Education Natural Science Awards. Marine environmental Physiology and photobiology group led by Prof. Kunshan Gao recently published their findings on the ecophysiological effects of ocean acidification in “Nature Climate Change”.  

The COE nurtures rich academic atmosphere and maintains high degree of openness and internationalization. It has various international cooperation platforms such as the “111”Innovation and Talent Attraction Base, the Ministry of Science and Technology International Cooperation Base, etc. It also has formed partnership with the State Key Laboratory of Marine Pollution in Hong Kong and co-established a joint research institute with the University of Delaware, and then in 2012, a dual degree program in Oceanography was further facilitated. Besides, a great amount of influential international meetings have been held by the COE.

Over the years, the COE’s capability of cultivating elites has been comprehensively d. It has formed an international marine scientific research education and innovative talent training system, a series of national excellent courses and excellent graduate student degree courses. The COE is recognized as a national marine science characteristic specialty center and has achieved good demonstrative and radioactive effect. Students of the college have also done some excellent performance such as being awarded the National Hundred Outstanding Doctorate Paper Nomination Prize, National College Students’ Science and Technology Competition Award, etc. Graduates are well qualified for Marine-related or Mari-culture scientific research, teaching and management work; research and administrative work in Marine Environmental Monitoring departments or Environmental Protection departments; and working at relevant enterprises.