The Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research (ITP), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) was officially founded in 2003, with the objectives of becoming a “High-level, International and Service-oriented” research institute and meeting the national strategy of supporting the sustainable development of Tibetan Plateau by frontier science and technology.

The main campus of ITPCAS is in Beijing, serving as the platform for research and exchange, while two other campuses are located in Lhasa and Kunming. ITPCAS consists of four research centers, including twelve teams, majoring in different aspects of Earth System Sciences, i.e., the Research Center for 1) Environment Changes and Land Surface Processes, 2) Continental Collision and Plateau Uplift, 3) Alpine Ecology and Human Adaptation, and 4) Three-Pole Observation and Big Data. ITPCAS has constructed ten field stations across the Tibetan Plateau, located at Nam Co, Mt. Qomolangma, Ngari, Muztagh Ata, Medog, Nagqu, Nyingchi, Qamdo, Yushu and Anemaqen which are key components for the High-cold region Observation and Research Network (HORN) for land surface processes and environment of China.

In 2022, the State Key Laboratory of Tibetan Plateau Earth System, Environment and Resources (TPESER) was established in ITPCAS. The mission of TPESER is 1) to leverage the comprehensive advantages of multidisciplinary and achieve basic, forward-looking, and strategic breakthroughs in the frontiers of the Earth System; 2) to deliver discovery science and technological support to address the national needs and secure the regional development and 3) to build a “pioneering research platform” for international open science.

ITPCAS is recognized as a leading institution in Earth System Sciences focusing on the Tibetan Plateau. ITPCAS attains its global influence through implementing a series of international cooperation programs and establishing numbers of oversea centers.