Since 1956, the Institute of Mathematics has increased the exchanges with domestic institutions of higher learning through holding training sessions and receiving teachers for training. Many mathematicians from universities benefited from the training and later became mainstays of various fields. The international cooperation and exchanges in the 1950s were mainly conducted with the socialist countries. After the reform and opening-up policy began in 1978, a large number of researchers went abroad and engaged in cooperative research and extensive exchanges with foreign counterparts.

In 1985, advocated by Director Wang Yuan, the Institute of Mathematics became one of the first institutes of the CAS that were opened to foreign scientists. Soon, the other three institutes also set up open laboratories, which received visiting scholars from both home and abroad in light of the principle of "opening, flowing, integrating, and gearing the research to the country and the world".

In recent three years, 719 person/times of visits abroad were made by researchers of the AMSS, who also received 1,055 visitors (including 604 overseas scholars and 451 domestic visitors). From 1999 to 2001, the AMSS also sponsored or co-sponsored 25 major international conferences or seminars. More than 70 academic workshops are being held regularly every year.