SWFU has 1,170 staff members that include 775 instructors — 86% of whom hold a master's degree and above.
The university raised 253 million Chinese yuan of research funds in the past five years;[when?]
The university has established cooperative and exchange ties with universities and research institutes in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Thailand, Philippines and Vietnam for joint research and training of graduate and undergraduate students.
Based on reciprocally transferable credit programs, SWFU has developed joint-education programs for undergraduate students based on the “2+2” models, as well as dispatching exchange graduate students for field practicum mandatory for thesis research with universities in the United States, Canada, Netherlands, Thailand, Poland, and Vietnam.
Joint research and training programs have been conducted in cooperation with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Rare Conservation, Global Environment Facility (GEF), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), MacArthur Foundation, and Ford Foundation.