The idea of setting up an Intercultural Institute in Timisoara was formulated on the occasion of an international seminar organized in Timisoara in 1991 by the Council of Europe in cooperation with the Romanian Ministry of Education on the topic of "The Reform of the Educational Systems in the Countries in Transition".

As mentioned by Mr. Jacques Chevalier, at that time program adviser at the Council of Europe, there were three main reasons why the Council of Europe decide to support this idea:

• At the beginning of the ‘90s Timisoara had a very high symbolic importance due to the fact that in December 1989 the citizens of Timisoara were the first to stand up against the communist totalitarian regime;

• The strategic position of Timisoara, the biggest city in the Western part of Romania, not far from the borders of Hungary and Yugoslavia, with good communication and travel facilities both to the rest of Romania and to the West makes it an ideal place for coordinating regional, national and international projects;

• Timisoara and the Banat region enjoy a very strong intercultural tradition characterized by long-standing good relations between the different ethnic and religious communities living here.

Between 1992 and 1995 the Intercultural Institute organized in Timisoara a series of international seminars of the Council of Europe on topics concerning educational reforms, teacher training and the introduction of the intercultural perspective in civic education. Some of these seminars were part of the Council of Europe’s project " Democracy, Human Rights, Minorities: cultural and educational aspects".