The European Committee of the Regions has designated Miercurea Ciuc as the venue for the 2026 KEP event. This is the first step in a process that could turn the county’s research institute into a European reference site.
The Joint Research Centre of the European Union, known as the JRC, is the European Commission’s own scientific and research institution. It is not an ordinary organization: the JRC provides the scientific basis for EU policy decisions, and its data and analyses underpin the Climate Law, the Nature Restoration Regulation, the Biodiversity Strategy and many other pieces of EU legislation. From Brussels to Seville and Ispra, it operates laboratories and network points across Europe.
Harghita County and the ICDCRM research institute in Miercurea Ciuc may become part of this system, within the regional circle of this network.
Why does this matter so much for a mountain region?
Joining the JRC network is not a matter of ranking. The question is whether a region’s scientific capacity reaches the level at which it can contribute meaningful data and research results to EU decision-making processes. This connection makes it possible not only to receive funding from Brussels, but also to become part of the knowledge production on which the EU bases its decisions regarding nature protection, the financing of mountain regions, large carnivore management and biodiversity.
For Harghita County, this means that the research carried out by ICDCRM, which until now has been known mainly at national and regional level, can be connected to a European scientific bloodstream that can have a direct policy impact.
How did we get here?
The SEDEC Commission of the European Committee of the Regions decided today that one of the key events of the 2026 KEP 2.0, the Knowledge Exchange Platform, will take place in Harghita County, at the ICDCRM institute in Miercurea Ciuc. Several Member States and regions competed for this opportunity.
KEP 2.0 is a platform operated jointly with the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, DG RTD. It strengthens the regional dimension of the European Research Area and builds a direct bridge between local research ecosystems and EU decision-making. A KEP event is therefore not simply a conference. It is the gateway through which a region can enter the real mainstream of EU research policy.
What has Harghita County built over six years?
Over six years, as a conscious strategic investment, ICDCRM has built accredited laboratory infrastructure and a research team worth nearly four million euros in Miercurea Ciuc. Today, the institute has outgrown its own infrastructure. This is not a problem, but proof: in six years, a real, growing, European-level research capacity has been created in a peripheral mountain region.
A message for the younger generation
This achievement also carries a message for local young people. ICDCRM proves that the meeting point of ecological research, genetics and natural sciences does not exist only in universities in major cities. At the foot of the Harghita mountains, in Miercurea Ciuc, it is also possible to conduct research and create at European level. Where research is visible in Brussels, it is worth staying at home.
The next step
The KEP event will take place in autumn 2026, at the ICDCRM institute in Miercurea Ciuc. Borboly Csaba is confident that, together with Deputy Prime Minister Tánczos Barna and the ICDCRM team, they will be able to organize an event that will worthily represent not only Harghita County, but the entire Carpathian mountain region in the mainstream of European research.