Karatina University was founded in 2007 as the central Kenyan campus of Moi University. It developed to become a constituent college of Moi in 2010 and attained university status under its current name in 2013.
It is based at Kagochi in Nyeri province, 10 miles outside Karatina, adjacent to the Mount Kenya Reserve. Its location inspires some of the research groups at the university including the Centre for Mountain Studies and Climate Change and courses such as tropical mountain studies.
Its students are spread across schools of agriculture and bioscience, education and social science, natural resources and environmental studies, pure and applied sciences and nursing, plus the business school which is located off-campus in Karatina.
The local tea production industry plays an important part. It was the first university in East Africa to offer courses in tea farming and engineering through its Tea Institute Centre, formed in 2012 on a 20 acre plantation.
Billing itself as "The Green Entrepreneurial University", it has been commended by the United Nations Environment Programme as one of the most active members of Kenya’s Green Universities Network. In 2023 it adopted Green University status and adopted a green agenda which includes water harvesting, the use of solar power and low-carbon building.
