Agricultural research in Spain has undergone a profound transformation since its institutionalisation in the 19th century to its current configuration as a complex and decentralised system. This process has been conditioned by economic, political and technological changes, and has had a clear territorial impact, materialised in networks of institutions, experimental farms, agricultural stations and specialised buildings. Beyond its scientific dimension, this development has generated an important architectural and landscape legacy that constitutes a significant part of the modernisation of the territory and can now be interpreted as scientific and technological heritage.

Following Vernon W. Ruttan’s classification, agricultural research in Western countries evolved from individual initiatives to specialised experimental stations and, finally, to national research systems capable of strategically planning scientific activity. In Spain, this journey resulted in the coexistence and overlap of different institutional models. After initial attempts to integrate universities, experimentation and agricultural extension, the model based on the Ministry of Agriculture was consolidated during much of the 20th century with the creation of the National Institute of Agronomic Research and, later, the National Institute of Agricultural Research (INIA), without this leading to the disappearance of other actors such as the CSIC or universities.

The 20th century saw the full institutionalisation of agricultural and scientific research in general, with the creation of key bodies such as the Board for the Extension of Studies, the CSIC and the INIA itself, which established a network of research centres nationwide. In the Madrid region, this process left a particularly dense mark, concentrating buildings, campuses, laboratories and experimental farms linked to both state agencies and technical colleges. These infrastructures were not only spaces for scientific production, but also places for landscape and territorial experimentation, where models of agricultural, forestry and productive management were tested and later extended to other regions.

Starting in the 1980s, the decentralisation of the system led to structural change, with powers being transferred to the autonomous communities and the creation of regional agricultural research systems. In the Community of Madrid, this process culminated in the creation of IMIDRA, which integrates a network of farms and centres distributed throughout the region, among which the El Encín farm stands out as a historic enclave of agricultural innovation. In this context, the recent incorporation of scientific and technological heritage into Madrid’s cultural legislation allows these spaces — buildings, landscapes and productive territories — to be recognised as complex heritage systems, whose conservation cannot be limited to the material, but must incorporate the memory of scientific activity and its role in the cultural construction of the contemporary landscape.