The Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning (IARRP) of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) takes international cooperation as the key driving force for promoting its innovation and development. Through institutional innovation, platform building, and pattern exploring, the institute has strengthened multilateral and bilateral cooperation with international organizations as well as countries and regions around the world, which provides strong support for the institute’s scientific and technological innovation as well as its international talents training and discipline construction, and has increased its international influence.

The institute attaches great importance to training and attracting international talent. Over the past five years, it has conducted international cooperation and exchanges involving 1,300 people, sending 87 researchers to overseas universities and scientific research institutions for long-term exchanges and training, and inviting 52 foreign experts and scholars to China for cooperation and to give guidance. The efforts have helped the institute gain an international mindset, solve scientific research bottleneck problems, and enhance its recognition in the international community. So far, the institute has introduced 30 full-time employees from outside China (approximately 11 percent of the total number of the institute’s full-time employees), and has employees holding 47 international full or part-time positions in international organizations and at well-known journals. The institute has thanked and commended three international experts, namely Dr. Sam Portch, then Vice President of the International Plant Nutrition Institute, Professor Eric Van Ranst, member of the Royal Academy of Belgium, and Professor Sibasaki Ryousuke, an internationally renowned expert from the University of Tokyo in Japan, for their help with talents introduction, nominating them with the "Friendship Award" of the Chinese government. In 2018, the institute was assessed by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China as a national demonstration base for attracting talents.

The institute has also been increasing efforts to expand its international partners and improve its innovation network around the world. It has established long-term partnerships with agricultural research institutions, universities and organizations in more than 40 countries, and has established seven cooperation platforms with the University of New Hampshire in the US, the International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI), Ghent University in Belgium, the Royal Academy of Sciences in New Zealand, the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences, IAK Agricultural Consulting Company in Germany (on behalf of the German Ministry of Agriculture), and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). The institute is also a member of many international organizations and alliances, such as the Global Soil Partnership (GSP) of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United States, and the International Atomic Energy (IAEA). The institute also implements the policy of China’s agricultural science and technology "Going Global", and participates in the international multilateral governance.

The institute often hosts international cooperation projects and large-scale international conferences. During the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20), it was in charge of more than 50 international cooperation projects for the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China, the World Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and the FAO, with research funding exceeding 30 million yuan ($4.64 million). It also took the lead in undertaking the collaborative innovation task of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and the academy’s first group of international agricultural science programs. Through project cooperation supported by international exchanges, the institute sponsored and hosted the 18th Congress of the International Society for Mushroom Science, the 5th International Conference on Silicon in Agriculture, and the Global Land Programme 3rd Open Science Meeting. 

With increasing efforts in planning and exploration, the institute is committed to promoting scientific and technological development, discipline construction and talent training in the fields of regional agricultural development, agricultural microbial resource utilization, agricultural ecology, agricultural soil, agricultural remote sensing and information technology, plant nutrition and fertility research. By deepening international cooperation and effectiveness, the institute will strive to become a world-class international cooperation base for agricultural resources and the environment.