The university campus is located in Hengqin Island, Zhuhai, Guangdong, on a piece of land leased to and under the jurisdiction of the Government of Macau.

With the signing of the Sino-Portuguese Joint Declaration in 1987, in order to meet the manpower needs during the transitional period before the return of Macao, the Macao Foundation under the Government of Portuguese Macau purchased the private University of East Asia in 1988 for 130 million patacas.

The graduate school and the open college of the University of East Asia that were not purchased by the Macau government, were merged to form the private East Asia Open College (now City University of Macau).

[7] On 20 December 2009, then President of China and General Secretary of the Communist Party Hu Jintao officiated at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new campus.

[8] On 5 November, then Vice Premier of the State Council Wang Yang officiated at the new campus inauguration ceremony.

In the 2014–2015 academic year, when the University of Macau began to conduct all classes on the new and modern campus.

In 2016, the University of Macau established a residential college system similar to that of Oxbridge in the United Kingdom.

The university also administrates Honors College, Graduate School, and the Centre for Continuing Education.

They offer postgraduate and undergraduate programmes with more than 700 academic staff members involved in teaching and research.

In 2001, the University of Macau began offering a bachelor's degree programme for Portuguese students.

Michael Taylor of the South China Morning Post wrote that year that the downgrading of the Portuguese department was perceived as a mistake in retrospect.

The research of FHS focuses on eight major themes: (i) cancer research, (ii) cancer precision medicine (iii) stem cell and development (iv) ageing, neural and metabolism disorders, (v) drug development, (vi) data science, (vii) bioimaging and (vii) structural biology.

[25] The Faculty of Law offers bachelor's, master's, doctoral and postgraduate certificate programmes in the Chinese, Portuguese and English languages.

The faculty members consist of legal experts from Macau, Mainland China, Portugal, Austria, Italy, Brazil, Belgium, India, and other countries.

Increasing numbers of students have been accepted in big firms worldwide, adding to the rising recognition of the University of Macau.

The faculty provides a number of courses every semester, including Economics, Statistics, Econometrics, Political Science, Public Administration, Contemporary China Studies, Sociology, Communications, Journalism and Public Communication, Psychology, and Historical and Cultural Relations between the East and the West.

The University of Macau's campus is separated from Taipa by a river, with the Hengqin Hill serving as a backdrop with trees.

The library, Central Teaching Building, facilities and Student Activity Centre are in the east.