East China Normal University (ECNU) has carried out international contacts since its establishment to promote high-level and substantive international cooperation and exchanges in an open, inclusive and shared manner. In the 1950s, ECNU sent the first batch of teachers and students to the former Soviet Union for further study, and introduced foreign experts to serve as advisers to the president of the university; in 1965 and 1979, the International Students Office and the Foreign Affairs Office (specific institutions in charge of foreign exchanges) were established respectively; stepping into the 21st century, in the process of building a world-renowned high-level research university, ECNU has taken a number of appropriate measures in terms of faculty building, talent cultivation, education guidelines, and management services to promote the process of internationalization.

As one of the three major development strategies of ECNU, internationalization has been deemed as the inevitable option for realizing the school’s three missions (education, civilization and development) in the new era. ECNU has been actively seeking global partners, successively establishing close cooperative relations with more than 300 universities and scientific research institutions in Europe, America, Asia, and Oceania. According to the 2022 World University Rankings as released by Times Higher Education, ECNU ranks third in mainland China and first in Shanghai in terms of International Outlook.

ECNU strives to create iconic and international school-running programs. Specifically, in 2002, the joint graduate student cultivation program between ECNU and the ENS Group of France was established, which is known as a model of Sino-French educational cooperation; in 2012, ECNU and New York University jointly established New York University Shanghai, which is an important part of the "National Education Comprehensive Reform Pilot Zone" jointly established by Shanghai Municipality and the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China. Relying on this platform, the two Universities jointly established 6 research centres; in 2015, ECNU established the Asia Europe Business School (AEBS) with Emlyon Business School; in 2016, Sino-Russian Joint Institute of Technology was co-established by ECNU and St. Petersburg State Institute of Technology; in 2018, ECNU-UA Joint Institute of Advanced Science and Technology was jointly established between ECNU and the University of Alberta; in 2020, ECNU was approved as one the first batch of universities in the "High-level International Talent Training Innovation Practice Base" of the Sino-Foreign Cultural Exchange Centre of the Ministry of Education.

ECNU has conducted international cooperation in diversified forms, carrying out student exchanges and joint cultivation with foreign universities. A total of 56 dual-degree joint cultivation programs for graduate students and 235 foreign (overseas) exchange programs for undergraduate students have been established. At ECNU, there are more than 1,800 students studying abroad every year. 

19 joint research platforms have been established with the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, National Research University – Higher School of Economics, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon (ENS Lyon) and the French National Centre for Scientific Research, Waseda University, and University of Dar es Salaam. 

ECNU also highlights high-level internationalization in terms of its teaching staff in that more than 1800 ECNU teachers go abroad for academic exchanges. At present, ECNU has more than 100 long-term foreign teachers and over 1,500 foreign experts who come to ECNU for short-term visits every year. Thus, a team of experts have emerged who have the right to speak in the international academic community, and have made outstanding contributions to international exchanges and cooperation.

International education of Chinese language is a dominant discipline of ECNU, which features a complete cultivation system, covering the cultivation of undergraduate students, academic masters, PhDs, professional masters, and professional PhDs. Five Confucius Institutes and two independent Confucius Classrooms have been established around the world. In addition, the education base in support of Chinese language teaching in UAE has been set up with various programs launched to carry out international Chinese education in cooperation with overseas organizations. The university receives various international Chinese teacher scholarship students, and undertakes China Studies Program for long term. The International Chinese Teacher Cultivation Base at ECNU is one of the most important bases for cultivating international Chinese teachers in the world.Adhering to the philosophy of cooperation, openness and mutual benefit, ECNU is willing to carry out in-depth cooperation with global educational and scientific research institutions to share high-quality resources and achieve mutual benefit, thus promoting the advancement of educational science and technology, and creating welfare for all mankind.