The Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, accorded permission to the Ramakrishna Mission to start a deemed university named the Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute by a Gazette Notification dated 5 January 2005. Later, the University was renamed as "Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University". The formal inauguration took place on 4 July 2005, Swami Vivekananda's Mahasamadhi day.

Swami Vivekananda envisioned that Belur Math would be a centre of great harmony and synthesis, not only of all religious beliefs and traditions, but also of arts and sciences and the various branches of knowledge, both secular and spiritual. It would be the centre of great spiritual and cultural awakening.

Aims and Objectives – The Vision: The present university is intended to actualize Swami Vivekananda’s fundamental educational ideas of imparting life-building, man-making and character building education by combining the best elements of the East and the West. The aim of the institute is to provide opportunities for education and research in the disciplines of arts, sciences and spiritual studies. Value education will therefore be an essential component in all the courses.

Administrative Aspects: The University is an international university that could operate through and from any of the branch-centres of Ramakrishna Mission in India and abroad. It is a cluster of institutions, all of them belonging to branches of Ramakrishna Mission, with headquarters at Belur Math, District Howarh, West Bengal.

The Major Thrust Areas: To start with, four major thrust areas were chosen because these have received little emphasis in any of the other conventional universities in India. They are thus the gap-areas in which the present university would operate.

• Disability Management and Special Education
• Integrated Rural Development including Tribal Development
• Indian Cultural & Spiritual Heritage and Value Education
• Disaster Management including Relief and Rehabilitation

• School of Indian Heritage at Belur Main Campus & Swami Vivekananda's Ancestral house, Kolkata
• School of Mathematical Sciences at Belur Main Campus & Swami Vivekananda's Ancestral house, Kolkata
• School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Belur Main Campus & Ramakrishna Mission campuses at Kolkata
• Faculty of Integrated Rural Development and Management (IRDM), Narendrapur
• Faculty of Integrated Rural & Tribal Development and Mangement (IRTDM), Jharkhand
• Faculty of Disability Mangement & Special Education (DMSE), Coimbatore
• Faculty of General & Adapted Physical Education and Yoya (GAPEdY), Coimbatore