BARI (Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute) is the largest multi-crop research institute conducting research on a large number of crops, such as cereals, tubers, pulses, oilseeds, vegetables, fruits, spices, flowers, etc. Besides variety development, this institute also carries out research on non-commodity areas, such as soil and crop management, disease and insect management, irrigation and water management, development of farm machinery, improvement of cropping and farming system management, post-harvest handling and processing, and socio-economics studies related to production, marketing, and consumption.

The institute functions through three major wings, such as Research Wing, Support Service Wing, and Training and Communication Wing. The Research Wing executes and monitors all the research programmes through 7 special crop research centres, 14 research divisions, 6 regional research stations and 28 sub-stations. The Support Service Wing provides all the logistic supports in research management as well as personnel management. This wing is also responsible for infrastructural development, financial management and general procurement of the institute. The Training and Communication Wing performs its responsibilities by conducting and offering training to the scientists, extension workers, and farmers. Dissemination of information through publications and transfer of technologies through commodity distribution, and human resource development also fall under the discretion of this Wing.

The Institute has its central research station at Joydebpur about 35 km north of Dhaka. The research compound of the central Station is spread over 176 hectares of land of which 126 hectares are experiment fields.

The Institute has established 6 regional research stations in 6 agro-ecological regions of Bangladesh to develop new technologies for specific location. The regional stations are located at Ishurdi, Jamalpur, Jessore, Hathazari, Rahmatpur, and Akbarpur. Besides these the Institute has 28 research stations including 3 hill research stations (Khagrachari, Ramgarh and Raikhali) that function under the technical guidance of the adjacent regional station.

BARI has 7 crop research centres, 4 of which are at the central research station at Joydebpur. These include Tuber Crops Research Centre (TCRC), Plant Genetic Resource Centre (PGRC), Oilseed Research Centre (ORC), and Horticulture Research Centre (HRC). The Wheat Research Centre (WRC) is situated at Nashipur, Dinajpur, while the Pulses Research Centre is located at Ishurdi, Pabna and Spices Research Centre (SRC) at Shibgonj, Bogra.