Alnarp "Castle" was built in 1862 to house a new school of agronomy, established by the Alnarp Agricultural Institute. Over the years, the Institute expanded to include schools of horticulture, farriery and dairy farming, with extensive experimental cultivation and research. During 1963-74, the Institute was gradually integrated with the Swedish College of Agriculture.

Today, Alnarp is a University Campus, which is part of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). SLU was founded in 1977 by merging the Swedish Colleges of Agriculture, Forestry and Veterinary Medicine. It has teaching and research centres all over Sweden and Alnarp is one of the four main campuses belonging to SLU.

SLU Alnarp, a green island in a sea of fields, lies in between the cities of Lund and Malmö. The campus consists of a large park with a great variety of trees, plants, and beautiful buildings situated around the old Alnarp Castle. Garden and landscape-related university programme students and professionals use the Alnarp Park primarily for educational purposes. The occasional visitors, as indeed the many "regulars" from the surrounding towns, find the park just as suitable for botanical browsing as for recreation.

Alnarp staff and faculty members number 400, and there are about 750 students. Research and Development Research at the SLU in Alnarp is mostly publicly funded and centres largely on the exploitation of renewable natural resources, urban and rural planning and environmental issues. Private trade and industry in the region also offer considerable support to Alnarp and fund and participate in many projects. Extensive research is carried out in the fields of Agricultural Production and Engineering, Landscape Planning, Forestry, Horticulture, Plant Protection and Crop Science.

SLU Alnarp offers five degree programmes: Master of Science Programmes are offered in Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, and University Diploma Programmes are offered in Agricultural and Rural Management, Horticultural Management, and Landscape Construction and Management. Many courses are open to "non-programme" students from other universities, in Sweden and abroad. Postgraduate courses are offered within several subject areas, as are vocational training and refresher courses. Teaching takes place mainly in Swedish, but the school also offers a great variety of courses taught in English.

SLU Alnarp co-operates with several other Swedish universities in a variety of projects. In connection with the Øresund University SLU Alnarp has begun a unique collaboration with the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in Copenhagen, Denmark. Since 2001, the two universities have offered a programme, which gives students the opportunity to study a joint degree in Horticultural Science.