NIPS is an internationally recognized research institution and active international exchanges are performed. NIPS has the positions of foreign research staff, and world top-class researchers have engaged in research collaboration so far using this framework. Besides the research collaboration, visiting professors contribute to education of young researchers. In FY2014, NIPS started the Section of International Collaborative Research Project, which is run for 3 years by an adjunctive foreign professor as a Principal Investigator (P.I.). From FY2023, Dr Andrew Moorhouse in University of New South Wales Sydney (Australia) is serving as an adjunctive foreign professor and run a lab as a P.I., focusing on the brain function from the circuit level. Also, many foreign students enter Physiological Sciences Course of SOKENDAI as graduate students and engage in research actively.
　One of the main international exchange activities at NIPS is the annual international symposium. A NIPS professor serves as an organizer, and leading researchers from abroad and Japan are invited. Due to the influence of the spread of COVID-19, NIPS could not hold in person international symposium in FY2020, 2021, 2022. In FY2023, with the re-classification of COVID-19 from class 2 to class 5, the 53rd NIPS International Symposium entitled “Neural Dynamics and Information Processing in the Brain and Body” was held on site (Organizer: Professor Keiichi Kitajo). In FY2024, the 54th symposium is planned (Organizers: Professors Hiroaki Wake and Junichi Nabekura).
　NIPS has an academic contract or a memorandum of understanding for academic interaction (MOU) with foreign institutions as follows, and is actively conducting joint academic activities including collaborative researches. The institutions are Korea University, College of Medicine and Yonsei University, College of Medicine and Dentistry (Korea); Tübingen University, Werner Reichardt Center for Integrative Neuroscience (Germany); Chulalongkorn University Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences (Thailand); University of New South Wales, Faculty of Medicine (Australia); Neurospin (France); and McGill University (Canada). In FY2023, MOU with the “whole” Chulalongkorn University was newly contracted. Also, a joint symposium with McGill University as well as workshop was held in NIPS, inviting 6 P.I.s and 5 PhD students. Furthermore, 6 NIPS researchers were sent to Bordeau University (France) to attend a joint symposium. In FY2024, NIPS will continue to strengthen activities of international interactions and collaborations.
　Besides these, many international research collaborations of high quality are performed at the individual researchers’ level, supported by the budget of NIPS as well as NINS and also research grant from outside.