[12] A Brisbane campus, operated by Russo Higher Education, delivers undergraduate and postgraduate courses to international students.

[14] In 1970 Queen Elizabeth II, The Duke of Edinburgh and Her Royal Highness Princess Anne toured Australia including Queensland.

The Queensland tour began on Sunday 12 April when the royal yacht Britannia entered Moreton Bay at Caloundra, sailing into Newstead Wharf.

In the presence of many dignitaries, HM Queen Elizabeth II formally granted autonomy to North Queensland's new educational institution.

The rare collection item – 'James Cook University Development: Pimlico to the First Chancellor archival footage, 1960 – 1970' was one of the Treasures selected for the anniversary year.

On 1 January 1982, JCU amalgamated with The Townsville College of Advanced Education located adjacent to the main campus in Douglas.

Tony Abbott MP, Prime Minister of Australia officially opened the new JCU Singapore campus at 149 Sims Drive on 28 June 2015.

In the early hours of 4 April 2019, a large fire broke out in the A Wing of University Hall requiring the evacuation of over 200 students.

[36] The $30M eco-friendly building brings together students, staff and community entrepreneurs to progress Internet of Things Engineering and data science.

[39][40] The Eddie Koiki Mabo Library (built in 1968 and extended in 1990) has received the 25 Year Architecture Award presented by the Royal Australian Institute of Architects – Queensland Chapter.

The 94m, 9,400sqm facility "will be the centrepiece of an innovation hub in which undergraduate and post-graduate engineering and IT students, industry partners and researchers will converge and collaborate".

Courses offered include business, education, information technology, psychology, environmental science, and tourism and hospitality, to international and domestic students.

Mackay Clinical School also offers Year 1 – 4 in Pharmacy, allowing students to undertake their full course requirements locally.

JCU Mackay, located at the Mater Hospital, offers the Bachelor of Nursing Science (Pre-Registration) and provides facilities for medical and dental placements.

The JCU GP Training Program "provides clinicians the opportunity to expand their scope of practice through working in private clinics and in hospitals where they will gain experience treating a range of conditions in low-resource settings".

[51] There is also a study centre located in the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine (AITHM) building on Thursday Island, providing teaching and learning facilities for nursing, education and diploma of higher education students in the Torres Strait region, including the northern tip of Australia.

[58] The Australian Government's QILT[b] conducts national surveys documenting the student life cycle from enrolment through to employment.

[59] These surveys place more emphasis on criteria such as student experience, graduate outcomes and employer satisfaction[59] than perceived reputation, research output and citation counts.

James Cook University's Townsville, Bebegu Yuma campus, situated in the suburb of Douglas, has five on-campus residential halls and colleges, which can accommodate 1,158 students.

[67] Saint Mark's College, run by the Anglican Diocese of North Queensland, accommodated 154 male and female students until its closure in 2017 due to financial difficulties.

[71] In November 2017, marine physicist Peter Ridd commenced proceedings in the Federal Circuit Court against the university alleging that by censuring and eventually dismissing him from his employment, JCU had breached the intellectual freedom provision in its enterprise agreement, in violation of the Fair Work Act.

[72][73] JCU maintained that "it had never sought to silence Ridd, and his sacking was due to 'serious misconduct' and breaches of the university's code".

[74] Following a hearing, the Federal Circuit Court found that the university's actions were unlawful,[75] and in September 2019 ordered JCU to pay $1.2 million in compensation to Ridd.

[81][82] Although the Court found that some of the university's censures of Ridd were in breach of its enterprise agreement, Ridd ran his case on an "all or nothing" basis, and the High Court found that the termination of his employment was ultimately justified in relying on 18 findings of serious misconduct which were not protected by the university's academic freedom clause.

[84][85] The then acting vice-chancellor said there was a failure of internal processes and that the staff member would have been dismissed immediately if senior management had been aware that he had pleaded guilty.

[84] However, whistleblowers said there had been a cover-up and that senior management, including the vice-chancellor and the university secretary, had been told of the guilty plea prior to the perpetrator's promotion.

[86][87][88] In May 2021, the American publication Science Magazine made claims about scientific fraud involving 22 papers linked to James Cook University's Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.

The article supported by the international Science Fund for Investigative Reporting, is the culmination of years of research and contested claims over how fish behaviour is changed by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the oceans.

[89][90] An investigation by the UK scientific journal Nature published on 8 January 2020, found that eight James Cook University (JCU) studies on the effect of climate change on coral reef fish, one of which was authored by a JCU educated discredited scientist, had a 100 percent replication failure and thus none of the findings of the original eight studies were found to be correct.

[93][94] The scientist had also been found guilty of fabricating data underpinning a study at Uppsala University in Sweden following her departure from JCU in Queensland, Australia.