Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences

Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences is a municipal comprehensive agricultural research institution, established in 1960. It comprises 9 research institutes and possesses 5 *technology platforms, 2 municipal key laboratories, and a range of public science and technology service platforms.
The academy currently has 1,000 on-site employees, including 471 professional technical personnel, 166 senior professional technical staff, 168 master's and doctoral degree holders, and 65 experts receiving special government allowances from the State Council. It has developed advantageous disciplines (fields) such as germplasm innovation and genetic improvement, facility horticulture technology, ecological agriculture technology, agricultural biosafety and standardization, fresh produce preservation and processing, high-tech agricultural applications, and urban agriculture theory. The academy conducts scientific and technological exchanges and collaborative research with more than 30 countries or regions. It edits and publishes 7 academic and technical journals, including "Acta Agriculturae Shanghai" and "Edible Fungi". It focuses on cultivating three major science and technology industries: biological vaccines, food (medicinal) fungi, and seeds and seedlings. Its scientific services are based in Shanghai, radiate to the Yangtze River Delta, and serve the national "three rural" (agriculture, rural areas, and farmers).
Since the "10th Five-Year Plan", the academy has closely adhered to the municipal party committee and government's main strategy of revitalizing the city through science and education, building a strong agricultural science and technology city, and developing urban modern agriculture. It insists on independent innovation, strengthens discipline, platform, base, and team building, and continuously enhances its scientific innovation capability and self-development capability. The academy has undertaken 443 national, ministry (municipal)-level or above scientific research projects and has won 49 ministry (municipal)-level or above science and technology achievement awards, including 7 first prizes for municipal scientific and technological progress. Additionally, 126 new crop varieties have passed examination (recognition).
Facing the new situation, the academy adheres to the governance policy of "establishing the academy through science, developing the academy through innovation, strengthening the academy through talent, and opening the academy to the outside world". It strives to basically build by 2010 a domestic first-class and internationally influential modern agricultural science academy with urban agricultural characteristics, as well as a regional urban agricultural research center. It aims to become a base for agricultural scientific innovation, a base for the transformation and display of scientific achievements, a base for talent cultivation, and a base for international agricultural science and technology cooperation and exchange, providing scientific and technological support for Shanghai's leading role in basically realizing agricultural modernization and building urban modern agriculture.