In January 1988, the university was renamed Ocean University of Qingdao and honored with an inscription by Mr. Deng Xiaoping, China’s former Paramount Leader. In 1996, the university was approved as one of the first national key universities in “Project 211” (a list of China’s top 100 universities). This success was followed, in February 2001, by the university being approved as one of the “Project 985” universities (China’ s top 40 universities), an achievement that was jointly-supported by the MoE, the Shandong Provincial Government, the State Oceanic Administration, and Qingdao’s Municipal Government.