The Belgorod State National Research University is also know as Belgorod State University. Medical institution is one among the various Institutions in Belgorod State University. The history of Belgorod State National Research University (abbreviated as BelSU) is closely connected with the history of pedagogic education in Russia. The reforms of the 1860s (following the Russian Emancipation Edict of 1861) promoted the speeding-up of economic, military and scientific development of the country and brought about an increase in the number of educational establishments. After 1872, special educational institutions in Russia started to appear – teaching institutes. On September 26, 1876 in the district town of Belgorod, the Teacher's Training Institute – the ninth of that kind in Russia – was founded by the order of the Russian Ministry of Public Education.

That was the beginning of a challenging but eventful history of the University, throughout which it has had different names and organizational structures: Belgorod Pedagogical Institute (1919), Belgorod Institute of Public Education (1920), Belgorod Practical Institute of Public Education (1922), Belgorod Pedagogical Vocational School (1923), Teacher's Training Institute (1939), Belgorod Pedagogical Institute (1954), Belgorod М.S.Olminsky State Pedagogical Institute (1967), Belgorod M.S.Olminsky State Pedagogical University (1994) and, finally, Belgorod State University (since 1996). The University had to temporarily suspend its operation in 1941 due to the outbreak of World War II and resumed its work only when the area had been completely liberated from fascists – in 1944, but in a new place – the town of Stary Oskol (Belgorod region) because Belgorod came out of war almost totally destroyed. Since 1957, the University has been located in Belgorod: first, it was placed into a building in Kommunisticheskaya Street (today it’s the building of the Social-Theological Faculty at 78 Preobrazhenskaya Street), and in 1966, the Institute moved into a new building in Zhdanova Street (now it is 14 Stydencheskaya Street).

Nowadays the University has several campuses in and out of Belgorod. In the early 2000s, the University complex began to develop and expand fast due to new buildings with modern equipment. The number of students over the last 7 years has grown more than three times.