The foreign partner unit - a public or private institution - should be an outstanding representative of the research field or business.  It will act as a role model for good practices in organising and leading scientific research as well as in the evaluation of work and research. It will be involved in the management of the IRAP implementing unit and its research agenda. This collaboration will be based on an international agreement. No financial responsibility will be involved on the part of the foreign partner. There will also be no possibility of transferring budgetary funds from the IRAP implementing unit to the foreign partner unit.

Currently, foreign strategic partners of ongoing International Research Agendas projects include:

The University of Würzburg

The University Medical Center Goettingen

The University of Edinburgh

The Astroparticle and Cosmology (APC) Laboratory in Paris

The Univerity of Oxford

Uppsala University

Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of Austrian Academy of Science

European Molecular Biology Laboratory

Goethe University Frankfurt

CNRS: Institute of Electronics, Microelectronics and Nanotechnology in Lille