NIE has developed meaningful collaborations with several national and international institutes. The Institute has Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the areas of research and training with Swiss Tropical Institute (STI), Basel. Recently under the Indo-Swiss bi-lateral funding, the institute is engaged with STI on several projects ranging from disease-specific research projects to public health training. Further, in Tamil Nadu, the institute has been working closely with the State health services and institutes such as Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Madras and Sri Ramachandra University, Chennai. International experts from CDC and WHO frequently come as external faculty for the Field Epidemiology Training Programme.
For improving the quality of public health training in the country, ICMR has developed ICMR Partnership for Schools of Public Health (IPSPH).in the country with its secretariat at NIE. Institutes joining this partnership include (I) the institutes of National Importance viz. the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh and SCTIMST, Thiruvananthapuram (II) Premier public health training institutes in the country viz. All Indian Institute of Hygiene and Public Health (AIIHPH, Kolkata), National Institute of Health and Family Welfare (NIHFW), New Delhi (III) Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC), Pune, (IV) National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD), Delhi and (V) Institutes of eminence in medical field e.g. Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore. This partnership also includes international partners. The institute has partnership at the international level with WHO, Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, Erasmus University, the Netherlands; UCLA, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Boston University, Swiss Tropical Institute etc.