In April 1901, the Ministry of National Education of the Russian Empire announced the Mykolaiv Industrial Technical School.

Teaching began on 18 September 1902 with courses including shipbuilding, mechanics, electrics and road building that was carried out in a department of works and in the school itself.

The school had the status of a higher education institution: after three years of study, graduating students received the qualification of engineer.

[1] In 1941, at the Soviet Union's entry into World War II, the MSI employed 94 teachers and was training almost 700 students.

[1] On 15 July[2][3][4] and 10 October[5] 2022, the building of the university was partially ruined by Russian missile attacks during the Battle of Mykolaiv.

The university offers bachelor, expert and master's degrees; a doctorate of science; and academic and teacher education.

The university's Educational Scientific Centre of International Cooperation (ESCIC) organises the NUS associations with other universities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, China, Poland, Romania, Turkey, Bulgaria, Iran, Spain, Vietnam and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

It liaises with, for example, the German Academic Exchange Service, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, Germany), the Fulbright Program and the International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX) in the US, and the Education for Democracy Foundation (Poland).