The basic idea of IISER is to create research Universities of the highest calibre in which teaching and education will be totally integrated with the state of the art research. These Universities are devoted to Undergraduate and Postgraduate teaching in sciences in an intellectually vibrant atmosphere of research. One of the important objectives of creating these Universities is to make education and careers in basic sciences more attractive by providing opportunities in integrative teaching and learning of sciences and break the barriers of traditional disciplines.

SCAR: The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) is an inter-disciplinary committee of the International Council for Science (ICSU). SCAR is charged with initiating, developing and coordinating high quality international scientific research in the Antarctic region, and on the role of the Antarctic region in the Earth system. SCAR is financially supporting IWOA'13.

SCOR: The Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) is the leading international non-governmental organization for the promotion and coordination of international oceanographic activities. SCOR is providing grants to early career researchers under the age of 35 from developing countries and economies in transition for participation in IWOA'13.