The Mercator European Research Centre is hosted by the Fryske Akademy (Frisian Academy), the centre for scientific research on all aspects of Frisian language, history and culture. The Fryske Akademy is affiliated with the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (KNAW) and is a part of the institute and research organization of the KNAW.

The Mercator European Research Centre is part of the European Mercator Network.
The mission of the Mercator European Research Centre is the acquisition and inventory, research and study, dissemination and application of knowledge in the field of language learning at school, at home and through cultural participation. Its work is mostly focused on the regional and minority languages in Europe, but immigrant languages and smaller state languages are also topics of study.

The Mercator European Research Centre is situated in the minority-language province of Fryslân. As a research institute, the centre wants to make use of the excellent opportunities the Frisian situation has to offer as a living laboratory on multilingualism. At the same time, Mercator makes state-of-the-art research and interesting developments from other minority-language regions available to relevant stakeholders in Fryslân. In other words, the Mercator European Research Centre brings Fryslân to Europe and Europe to Fryslân.

Mercator European Research Centre shares and disseminates collected knowledge, online and via its publications. The Mercator Regional Dossiers, for example, are written by experts from all over Europe, and describe in-depth language education and legislation of less-used languages in Europe. The Mercator Network Newsletter, with almost 2500 subscribers, brings you monthly news about less used languages in Europe and about upcoming events. Mercator writes research reports, also on commission, and these are freely downloadable. The Mercator library is located at Tresoar, the Frisian centre for cultural and linguistic heritage in Leeuwarden, and contains over 6500 books and articles concerning less used languages and multilingualism.