The Institute of Grassland Science (IGS), which was the Laboratory of Forage at the AnimalScienceCollege previously, was founded in 1995. Presently, the institute is composed of the Laboratory of Grassland Management and Ecology, the Laboratory of Forage Cultivation and Processing, the laboratory of Turf Science, and the Laboratory of Herbage Seed Science, the Guyuan State Key Monitoring and Research Station of Grassland Ecosystem, the Key Laboratory of Grassland Vegetation Restoration and Reconstruction（Ministry of Agriculture, P. R. China），the Key Laboratory of Grassland Science (Beijing), and Herbage and Turf Seed Testing Center (Ministry of Agriculture, PR China). Faculty of the institute includes 4 professors, 11 associate professors and 6 lecturers.

Postgraduate students were enrolled in IGS from 1963. Six postdoctors had finished studies, and 53 Ph.D and 126 master students graduated from the institute. IGS can have their own undergraduate students of grassland science in 2001.

Since 1980, the IGS had completed 125 national, provincial and regional projects and conducted researches about grassland management, pasture establishment, forage processing, grassland ecology, herbage seed and breeding, and lawn management. IGS were awarded the Science and Technology Prize in 2001 for the studies on the grassland – livestock industry in the Agri-pastoral Transition Zone in North China. More than 500 paper and 30 books have been published by now.

The Secretary office of Chinese Grass Society (former Chinese Grassland Society) has been built in the IGS since its foundation in 1979. The 1st to 5th president of the Chinese Grass Society has been the professors of IGS via the national election. The three sub-secretary offices, Secretary office for Standards of Grass Products, Turf Science Committee, and Herbage Seed Science and technology Committee, are set up in the IGS. The Journal of Acta Agrestia Sinica is the window of communication of grassland and forage science among the scientists in China and abroad.