Featured with strong engineering background, IRSM, CAS (Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences) is a comprehensive scientific research institution dedicated to the basic research and applications of geomechanics and geotechnical engineering. The predecessor of the institute was Wuhan Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences， which was founded in 1958. In 1961, the institute was merged with some other research units, and Zhongnan Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, was established. In 1985, it was renamed as the Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Since it was founded, IRSM has completed more than 500 significant research projects extending over many fields, including energy resource, transportation engineering, urban construction, national defense, and geohazard mitigation. With these efforts, IRSM has made great contributions not only to the development of Rock and Soil mechanics but also to the social and economical development of China.

With the conception of ‘Task drives the way for the discipline, basic research promotes the application, technology development serves the engineering’ and the spirit of ‘cooperative, practical, explorative, enterprising’, IRSM is now making every effort to accomplish its overleaping development and to become an innovative research base and an internationally acclaimed, first-class research institution in the field of geomechanics and geotechnical engineering.