A world leader in plant research, the Garden's International Plant Science Center applies combines today's cutting-edge technologies and classic research techniques unsurpassed museum resources in  exploring, documenting, interpreting, and preserving Earth’s vast botanical biodiversity. The Garden’s scientific botanical research program is one of the most wide-ranging and distinguished in the world.

Programs and facilities of the International Plant Science Center include:

• The Institute of Systematic Botany, whose scientists explore, document, and explain the world’s plant and fungal biodiversity

• The Institute of Economic Botany, whose scientists study the relationship between plants and people. They document and develop practices that improve food security, sustainable resource management, and public health.

• The Pfizer Plant Research Laboratory, which houses the Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Program for Molecular Systematics Studies and the Genomics Program

• The William and Lynda Steere Herbarium, one of the most active and comprehensive herbaria in the world, now increasingly available anywhere, anytime through the C. V. Starr Virtual Herbarium

• The LuEsther T. Mertz Library, whose more than one million titles support research in botanical science, horticulture, and garden design

• The New York Botanical Garden Press disseminates research results to the scientific community and the public

• The Graduate Studies Program trains an annual average of 40 Ph.D. candidates from numerous countries, in partnership with five premier universities