[10] IRRI is well known for its contribution to the "Green Revolution" movement in Asia during the late 1960s and 1970s, which involved the breeding of "semi-dwarf" varieties of rice that were less likely to lodge (fall over).

[13] A report published by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research in 2011 assessed the impact of IRRI's breeding work in three countries in South East Asia between 1985 and 2009.

In August 2013, anti-genetically modified organism protestors broke into IRRI's research facilities and destroyed field trials of golden rice.

[21] The Ramon Magsaysay Award is an annual award was established in 1957 by the trustees of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund based in New York City, with the concurrence of the Philippine government, to "perpetuate former Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay's example of integrity in governance, courageous service to the people, and pragmatic idealism within a democratic society".

[22][23] The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation posited that IRRI represented "the first coordinated international attempt in the tropics to solve a major problem of world agriculture",[21] while also stating: Distilling more than three millennia of accumulated insight in cultivating man's leading cereal crop, the International Rice Research Institute, with its creation of "miracle rice", inaugurated a "green revolution", promising nearly one-half of humanity the prospect of suffficiency in its staple food.

The award jury also pointed to: IRRI's success in transferring the results of its research, by working with local teams and organizations in Asian and sub-Saharan countries and making its varieties freely available to farmers.

[24]There are scheduled shuttle buses (mainly for employees and quantity depend on the timing, usually only one) that move back and forth from the UPLB campus to the IRRI lobby and three other buildings for free.

IRRI's headquarters in the Philippines is located on a 252 hectares (620 acres) experimental farm with modern laboratories and glasshouses, and a training center.