The institute has been devoting great efforts to international collaboration and academic exchange. It has developed long term and solid partnership with dozens of research institutes, universities, enterprises, and international organizations all around the world. Collaboration takes a variety of forms, such as signing bilateral agreements, establishing joint laboratories, holding symposiums, and facilitating personnel and student exchanges.

IOP Center for International Collaboration (CIC) was established in 2010 to reinforce and expand its collaboration networks. Every year, around 500 visitors come to IOP from abroad, and around 700 IOP staff and students go abroad for collaborations and exchanges. Among the invited visitors, many are renowned scientists, and some are Nobel laureates. IOP has founded a number of lecture series to host their talks, e.g. "Daniel C. Tsui's lectures", "Zhongguancun Forum", "Lectures of Advances in Condensed Matter Physics", and CIC Lectures, etc. IOP also invites overseas scientists to come to work during their sabbaticals to allow for in-depth collaborations and communications. IOP also organizes high level international conferences and workshops on a regular basis.