The China–Sri Lanka Joint Center for Education and Research for the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (CSLCER) was founded in August 2015. The Joint Center is an overseas science and education base of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), whose supporting institution is the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, CAS.

Other participants include the Bureau of International Co-operation, CAS. The building organizations are the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, CAS; the Institute of Acoustics, CAS; UCAS; the University of Ruhuna; the University of Peradeniya; and the University of Moratuwa. The Chinese Director of the Center is WANG Dongxiao, a Professor at the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, CAS.

The Indian Ocean is the third-largest ocean, and is thus very important in oceanographic research. The Indo-Pacific warm pool is the energy center of the world’s oceans, where the strongest global mass and energy exchanges occur.

The tremendous thermal potential of the Indo-Pacific warm pool has an important impact on climate variability in Southeast Asia and serves as a major source for low-frequency dynamic wave trains, as well as the 'bridge' influence of the tropical Indian Ocean and eastern Pacific Ocean on the East Asian monsoon, a phenomenon controlling disasters such as drought, flooding, and typhoons in China, and regulating global climate change.