The Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) cooperates with partner institutions, primarily from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, Ukraine), and the U.S. (the Cold War International History Project of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC) and Israel (the Yad Vashem Institute). Above all, the cooperation involves organization of scientific conferences and implementation of joint research projects.

The most important cooperation agreements have been signed by the Institute of National Remembrance with the following institutions: the Office of Federal Commisioner for the Records of the National Security Services of the former DDR (Germany), Nation's Memory Institute (Slovakia), the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes (the Czech Republic), the National Council for the Study of Securitate Archives (Romania), the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes (Romania), the Security Service of Ukraine, the Holocaust Museum in Washington (USA) and the Yad Vashem Institute (Israel).

The IPN with six institutes, from Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary have set up European Network of Official Authorities in Charge of the Secret-Police Files. This organization works in scientific, educational and informational fields. In 2010 the Institute of National Remembrance held presidency in the Network.

In recent years, the Institute has co-organized several major international scientific conferences on the communist regime and communist repression. They brought together the highest world-renowned scholars - 'The Communist security apparatus in East-Central Europe, 1944/45-1989' (2005), 'Crises of the Communist System, 1953-1989' (2006), 'International Communist Movement, 1944-1956' (2007) and 'East-Central Europe in the Cold War, 1945-1989' (2008).

Apart from conferences a fine example of the international cooperation is a project of the publication of the Warsaw Pact documents conducted together with the Cold War International History Project of Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

As part of educational activity, the IPN creates historical exhibitions which are presented worldwide. In recent years, the following exhibitions have been successfully shown abroad: ‘Polish Peoples’ Republic (PPR): So Far Away, So Close…’, 'Invasion 1968', 'The Expelled', 'Solidarity Fighting' and 'Extermination of the Polish Elites', ‘Action AB– Katyń'.

The cooperation with colleagues from partner institutions, e.g. from Germany, the Czech Republic and Hungary, was also an important part of work on two-volume publication 'Before and after 13 December. Behind the Iron Curtain countries' attitude toward the crisis in PPR 1980-1981' (2006-2007). As a result of the cooperation with the Separate National Archives of Ukrainian Security Service, the Institute publishes a series entitled 'Poland and Ukraine in the Thirties and Forties of the Twentieth Century', within which a volume concerning the Great Famine in Ukraine in 1932-1933 was issued in English in 2009. The publication was presented to the public on 21 November 2009 in Kiev, during the anniversary of the Great Famine, with the participation of the IPN leadership, representatives of the state authorities of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance and the authorities of the Security Service of Ukraine.