Bishop Grosseteste University was originally established as a teacher training college for the Diocese of Lincoln in 1862. It gained taught degree awarding powers in 2012 and was granted full university status on 3 December 2012. It has around 2,300 full-time students currently enrolled on a variety of programmes and courses.

Lincoln Diocesan Training School for Mistresses was founded in 1862. It occupied the premises of an earlier, unsuccessful training establishment for male teachers, which had been built in 1842 with a chapel, lecture rooms and a school for teaching practice. It was later renamed Lincoln Diocesan Training College and, to mark the centenary in 1962, was renamed Bishop Grosseteste College. The college took its name from Robert Grosseteste, a 13th-century statesman, scholastic philosopher, theologian, scientist and Bishop of Lincoln. The college began awarded degrees of Bachelor of Education (BEd), originally validated by the University of Nottingham. From 1987, degrees were validated by the University of Hull and BEd students spent one of the four years of their course reading their main subject at Hull. In 1991, the college stopped awarding BEd degrees and began instead to award the degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honours and Qualified Teacher Status (BA(Hons)QTS).[7] In 2003, a Validation Agreement was signed with the University of Leicester. In 2006, the college was awarded university college status.

The university is on a single-site campus in uphill Lincoln, a short walk from the historic Bailgate area, the Cathedral and Castle. The oldest buildings are on the Newport frontage, with the earliest, a building of 1841, in a Tudor revival or Tudorbethan style. It is in brick with stone dressings and has gabled dormers. In 1861 an extension range, in a similar but plainer style, was placed at right angles away from the road. In 1862, Sir Arthur Blomfield designed the simple and plainer chapel, which stands between these buildings and the road.