The Graduate School of CAAS (GSCAAS) was founded in 1979. Based on 44 institutes which distributed in 18 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, GSCAAS adheres to the schooling philosophy of ‘research-based, quality-oriented, agriculture revitalization must be realized through science and education’ and insists to the school’s characteristics of ‘academy-institute combination, two-phase training’.
Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences is a national comprehensive agricultural research institution with responsibility for the country's major agricultural basic and application basic, applied research and high-tech research tasks. There are 2 major national facilities, 6 state key laboratories, 32 key laboratories of the Ministry of Agriculture; 16 national centers (sub-centers) for plant, and animal improvement; one long term national gene bank of crop germplasm resources; 10 medium-term national gene banks; 12 national medium-term germplasm nurseries; 5 national engineering research centers of Ministry of Science and Technology; 5 national observation and experiment field station; 35 agro-products quality and safety risk assessment laboratories of MOA; 3 national reference laboratories; 4 OIE reference laboratories; One national agricultural library possesses more than 2.1 million volumes and 330, 000 types of books.
The programs in GSCAAS are related to four major academic categories of natural sciences, engineering, agriculture and management sciences, including 11 Ph.D. primary disciplines and 16 Master’s degrees primary disciplines. The GSCAAS currently holds 51 Ph.D. programs, 61 Master programs, and 5 professional Master’s degrees in agriculture and veterinary medicine.