In 1948, the Shandong Insitute of Building Materials , the predecessor of University of Jinan , was established. In 1983, the Shandong Institute of Building Materials was approved to move to Jinan, the capital of Shandong Province, by the State Ministry of Education and it was just in 1983 that the construction work in Jinan commenced.

University of Jinan has 24 schools, and 2 post-doctoral research center, there are 3 doctorates have been awarded first-level discipline, 26 doctorate has been awarded discipline, 20 master degree have been awarded first-level discipline and 144 master degree have been awarded discipline. There are 6 majors for masters and 92 majors for bachelors. There are ten kinds of major specialties including Economics, Law, Education, Literature, History, Science, Technology, Medicine, Management, art, etc. There are 35916 full-time undergraduates, postgraduates and foreign students.

There are 54 key disciplines and research bases at the national or provincial level. In addition, there is one key national laboratory managed by the Shandong Provincial Government and one engineering research center under the Chinese Ministry of Education. Further, there are 14 key provincial discipline bases, 10 key provincial level laboratories, 4 key laboratories funded by the Shandong "Twelfth-Five-Year Plan", 8 social science research bases approved by the Shandong Provincial Government, and 14 provincial-level engineering research centers.