INEAC, the government-funded agricultural research institute of the Belgian Congo, employed a significant number of European researchers and African personnel for several decades, from the 1920s until the 1960s. Its work enjoyed a respectable status at international conferences and in publications. Its impact on agricultural practice in the Congo, though, is little known and appears to have been fairly limited. Little is known about labour relations at the institute or the impact of its numerous stations on nearby communities. This project aims to examine these issues in the context both of rural social history and the global history of science. It also seeks to understand how the practice of the institute changed in the context of decolonization.