It was founded on 8 May 1962, under the Rabindra Bharati Act of the Government of West Bengal in 1961, to mark the birth centenary of the poet Rabindranath Tagore.

[3] It is located at the Tagore family home, Jorasanko Thakur Bari.

[4] The current interim Vice-Chancellor of the university is Subhro Kamal Mukherjee, former Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court.

The Jorasanko Thakur Bari is the ancestral home of the Tagore family.

[5] The first non-European Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore was born here.