"Construction Plan for the Research Institute of Development in New Rural for Colleges and Universities" is an important initiative jointly carried out by Ministry of Education and Ministry of Science and Technology to promote regional agricultural development and new rural construction by colleges and universities. This construction plan has been included in the No. 1 Central Document of 2013 and has been highly valued by the central and local government.

 The Institute of Development in New Rural of Nanjing agricultural university was formally approved in April 2012 by Ministry of Education and Ministry of Science and Technology , being one of the first group of research institutes focused on new rural development in China. The institute adheres to the guiding ideology of both construction principles of new socialist countryside ,which is "developed production, well-off life, civilized village, clean village appearance, democratic management "and the construction plan of “Two Leading Roles” proposed by Jiangsu province. In accordance with the ethos of “honesty, simplicity, diligence, benevolence" of Nanjing Agriculture University and relying on the strong faculty force and substantial achievements in scientific research, the institute focuses on the construction of various new rural service bases, the macro-strategy research on new rural construction,cross-school or trans-regional resource integration and the building of the sharing platform and the research into the innovation of systems and mechanism in order to address the needs for the development of modern agriculture in the Yangtze River Delta region. The institute has made great contribution to our goal of building a world-class agriculture university.