Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) of Zhejiang University was established in 1996 and a  national key research base for humanities and social sciences supported by the Ministry of Education. 

In 2005, after being invited by then Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee Secretary Xi Jinping, China Academy for Rural Development (CARD) was established on the basis of the Center for Agricultural  and Rural Development of Zhejiang University.

CARD is listed as class A  innovation base of the national 985 engineering humanities and social sciences.

CARD was awarded as an excellent research base by the Ministry of Education in three assessments in 2003, 2009 and 2015, respectively.

In the three rounds of national first-class discipline evaluations conducted by the Ministry of Education in 2003, 2006, and 2012, agricultural economics discipline housed at the CARD was ranked Number 1 in China.

In December 2017, the Ministry of Education announced the results of the fourth round of national first-class discipline assessment and the discipline of agricultural economics in Zhejiang University was again ranked A+ and was listed as the national “double-first-class”discipline.

In 2018, CARD was approved as a key think tank in Zhejiang Province and was selected as the“CTTI2008 Top 100  for University Think Tanks”.