The Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) is a national comprehensive agricultural research institution in China. It was established in 1957, and is affiliated to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) of China. Headquartered in Beijing, CAAS oversees a Graduate School, 34 affiliated research institutes located in Beijing and across China, and a Publishing House.
CAAS is dedicated to overcoming a broad range of science and technology challenges impacting agricultural development and supporting the modernization of agriculture and rural areas through basic, applied and high-tech research. Research and policy work at the CAAS cover a broad range of topics that have been categorized in 11 major discipline clusters, consisting of 58 discipline fields and 283 key directions. The 11 disciplinary clusters include Agricultural Basic and Frontier Researc, Crop Science, Horticulture, Plant Protection, Agricultural Resources and Environment, Animal Science, Veterinary Medicine, Agricultural Microbiology, Agro-product Quality and Processing , Agricultural Equipment, Engineering and Information, and Agricultural Economics and Rural Development.
CAAS currently has 11,171 staff members, with 6,849 permanent employees. Among them, there are 6,167 professionals, including 1,458 professors and 2,123 associate professors, accounting for 23.6% and 34.4% of the total, respectively. CAAS now has 16 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering，over 400 laureates of national and provincial high-level talent titles and 422 CAAS Outstanding Talent. 817 postdoctoral researchers working at CAAS 11 postdoctoral mobile research stations and 10 postdoctoral research stations.
A relatively complete research platform system, up to 550 platforms, has been established at the national, ministerial and CAAS levels. CAAS has the world’s largest single P4 animal biosafety laboratory, and Asia’s largest P3 animal biosafety laboratory cluster. There are 2 Major National Science and Technology Facilities, 15 National Key Laboratories, 1 National Center for Technology Innovation, 5 National Engineering Technology Research Centers and 7 National Engineering Laboratories and Engineering Research Centers built in CAAS. There are 12 branches for mid-term storage and 13 National Crop Gene Repositories, with over 530,000 accessions in long-term preservation, ranking the second in the world. National Crop Gene Bank, with the world’s most extensive collection of native crop genetic resources, was newly built in 2021. The National Agricultural Library ranks top in Asia and the third in the world in terms of its collection of agriculture books.
Importantly, CAAS promotes sustainable agriculture within and outside China, taking collaborative research work and joint global actions with its partners around the world, including more than 330 foreign government departments, research institutions, nearly 50 international organizations, foundations, and multinational companies.
CAAS is committed to significantly advancing high-level agricultural science and technology innovation, in an effort to build an important world-class center for agricultural talent and innovation, and provide support for food security, higher agricultural production efficiency, transition towards green agriculture, and elimination of poverty and hunger in the world.