Over the years, the School has entered into partnerships with top ranked engineering educational institutions around the globe. These include University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Purdue University,Pennsylvania State University, University of Pennsylvania, and Georgia Institute of Technology (USA).Karlsruhe Institute of Technologyand University of Stuttgart (Germany), Paris Tech, and Institute Mines-Telecom (France), NTNU (Norway), KTH (Sweden) and  University of Sydney (Australia), 
 
The School of ME has developed close relationships with its partner universities covering a wide spectrum of activities ranging from student and faculty exchange, summer schools, dual degrees, joint student “Capstone” projects to research collaboration including joint supervision of PhDs. The School aims to intensify the hosting of visiting scholars to reinforce such cooperation.

The School has made continuous efforts to ensure that graduate students are exposed to research at the forefront of their specialties. Working with the partner universities around the world, the School has launched a number of joint research bases and a dual-mentor system, under which a graduate student has two advisors, one from SJTU and the other from a foreign partner university. Graduate students are strongly encouraged to interact with top students, scientists, scholars and researchers in the world through exchange programs, academic workshop and conferences as well as international competitions. 
 
Each year, over 140 graduate students attend international symposiums and conferences held outside China. Special grants are awarded to graduate students in recognition of quality research work as indicated by the publications in leading academic journals in the field. Each year, with the financial support provided by the China Scholarship Council, more than 10 Ph.D. students go on degree or non-degree programs at the selected partner universities in the United States and Europe.