EMRC 2026 – PERIPHERY

Organised by EGEA Tartu & EGEA Vilnius

We believe that in the periphery, people find community and strength from each other, different fields of science find ways to interlink and create breakthroughs, necessity brings innovation and local cultures thrive.

With this congress, we want to draw attention to an overlooked region and let its complex legacy and stories of foreign powers, diverse cultural influences and resilient identity in the face of persecution be heard. The periphery here is not some margin, but a place where overlooked stories can finally be heard.

Location

In the center of Baltics, Latvia is ready to welcome EGEA again after some time away to bring the Baltic geography community back together.

We welcome you in so called ‘Switzerland of the Vidzeme Region’ or – Sigulda. The accommodation is located in Gauja national park and has lovely cottages, a sports field, a big common house, and most importantly a sauna with a pond.

75 people are welcome to join us in the countryside to participate in workshops, excursions and evening programme.

Find out more about our accomodation BRŪVERI here.

How to reach the accommodation?

We suggest travelling first to Sigulda.

We encourage you to choose green travel options to help minimise our carbon footprint.

You can take the train to Sigulda:

🚅 directly from Riga (45 min to 1h 30 min)

🚅 from Tartu (3h), Tallinn (5h to 5h 30min) or Vilnius (5h 30min).

See Latvian train timetables here
See trains from Estonia here
See trains from Lithuania here

🚌From Riga, there are also direct buses to Sigulda (1h).

To reach Riga, we suggest looking into bus options with Flixbus or LuxExpress from Poland and the Baltics.

✈️ If you prefer to travel by plane, we recommend flying to Riga (or Tallinn or Vilnius if you would like to explore more of the Baltics).

From Sigulda, it is possible to take a regional bus part of the way towards the accommodation. Alternatively, if you enjoy being active, the accommodation is 4 km from Sigulda town centre and can also be reached on foot, partly via a hiking trail.

Programme

* The organisers might make changes to the programme if needed. This version is just for planning.

workshops & trainings

Here are our proposed workshop topics.

We don’t have fixed topics for the trainings and are open to all ideas. We plan to have four training sessions.

Excursions

Stay tuned for more information.

Why us?

Our team is committed and experienced in organising events. We organised the North & Baltic Congress in 2023 and 2024. For the past 12 years, we have continued the Baltic Weekend tradition, organising it on a rotating basis between Lithuania and Estonia each year. In 2024, the event took place in Latvia again. We therefore have the experience needed to organise a fun East & Mediterranean Congress in Latvia.

Meet the orgateam

Main orga: Jonas, Laura Heleene

Excursion coordinator: Edvards

Finance and fundraising: Regina, Artūrs

Green coordinator: Annabel

Science coordinator: Adomas, Martyna

Media, design & merch: Liis-Ellen, Mia Marie

Participant coordinator: Agnes, Livija

Day and night programme: Lauri, Lilija

Helping hands: Heli, Triinu, Mattias, Mikas, Gintarė and Helena