A hierarchical CoS shelled Cu2S nanorods material grown directly on copper foam (denoted as Cu2S NRs@CoS/CF) was prepared for the first time and used as the bifunctional electrocatalyst for both OER and HER in 1 M KOH solution. Resulting from the substrate-integrated synthesis, the highly open spaces and the synergistic effects between Cu2S and CoS active components, the as-obtained core-shell heterostructure and its derivative behaves as a remarkable active bifunctional electrocatalyst towards both water oxidation and hydrogen evolution reaction in 1 M KOH solution (pH 13.7), which only need low overpotentials of 275 and 235 mV to deliver the current density of 50 mA cm(-2) with Tafel slopes of 54 and 121 mV dec(-1) for OER and HER, respectively, rivalling the catalytic efficiency of most published non-noble metal catalysts. Furthermore, the fabrication strategy presented here is facile and economical which might offer some insights for fabricating other novel water splitting catalysts with high activity. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.