The establishment of a university in Kelantan was made as a component in the Ninth Malaysia Plan to support the quality of human capital development in the higher education sector. The federal agreement was announced by the Prime Minister on the 31 March 2006 in the Ninth Malaysia Plan proposal.

The establishment of the university was approved in the Cabinet Meeting on 14 June 2006. The cabinet has specified that the philosophy of the curriculum in UMK should be based on entrepreneurship and enterprise education in all the study programmes. Therefore, taglines such as “Entrepreneurship is Our Thrust” and “Entrepreneurial University” are widely used to promote the philosophy of this university. Specialised studies for short and moderate term are grouped into three main fields of studies, namely:

1. Entrepreneurship and Business;
2. Creative Technology and Heritage;
3. Agro-Based Industry and Earth Sciences