Brainport Eindhoven: top tech, but is society keeping up?

Brainport Eindhoven is internationally regarded as a textbook example of a thriving high-tech ecosystem. With ASML as a global key player, a robust knowledge infrastructure, and an unprecedented pace of innovation, the region appears to deliver precisely what Europe needs. Yet according to Tilburg University, Brainport also exposes where current industrial policy falls short: top economic performance does not automatically translate into broad prosperity.

That message lies at the heart of the new position paper, World Class Industry, World Class Society, in which researchers from Tilburg University explicitly present Brainport as a test case for the European and Dutch debate on earning capacity, competitiveness, and social cohesion.

Brainport as a European testbed

In the thinking of Mario Draghi and Peter Wennink, Brainport is almost self-evidently a shining example. The region demonstrates how strategic technology, public-private collaboration, and targeted investment can lead to economic growth, productivity, and geopolitical relevance. It is no coincidence that ASML’s expansion - Operation Beethoven - has become a national project.

But precisely because Brainport is so successful, Tilburg University argues, the region also serves as a mirror. It reveals what happens when technological and economic growth outpace social and spatial development.

“The Brainport region is a globally relevant experiment,” the authors write, “where it becomes clear how economic growth and high-end technology can, or cannot, be accommodated in social, spatial, and ecological terms.”

Behind the averages lies another reality

On paper, Brainport performs excellently. Employment is growing, incomes are rising, and the region is technologically indispensable to Europe. But when viewed through the lens of broad prosperity, a more complex picture emerges.

Research by Tilburg University, in collaboration with RaboResearch and Utrecht University, indicates that approximately 13 percent of the Brainport region’s residents score poorly on multiple broad prosperity indicators. That amounts to roughly 100,000 people—a group that structurally lags in areas such as health, education, income security, social connections, and housing quality.

According to the authors, this is precisely what is missing from the dominant growth narrative. Averages conceal disparities and when policy focuses primarily on economic output, parts of society risk being systematically overlooked.

Brainport for Each Other, Brainport Partner Fund

Notably, the report does not mention initiatives already underway within the Brainport region to strengthen broad prosperity. Two such initiatives have been organized in recent years by Brainport Development: Brainport For Each Other and the Brainport Partner Fund.

Brainport for Each Other is an association of employers from business, civil society, education, and government. Together, they have committed to working on solutions to societal challenges in the Brainport region. “Out of a sense of responsibility, equality, and curiosity about others,” the initiators say. “And about how things can be made more social. Because we can only remain economically successful if we are also socially strong.”

Through the Brainport Partner Fund, companies in the region contribute financially to Brainport’s future. Together with the national government and regional authorities, businesses invest in improved accessibility, accelerated construction of affordable housing, training additional technical talent, a balanced labor market, and greater equality of opportunity and social cohesion - measures needed to manage the region’s rapid growth responsibly.

Trickle-down or synchronous policy?

The core of Tilburg University’s critique is not that economic growth is unimportant. On the contrary, Brainport demonstrates the crucial role of technological innovation in the economic capacity of the Netherlands and Europe. But the paper questions the implicit reliance on the so-called trickle-down effect: growth first, prosperity for everyone later.

Tilburg University advocates a synchronous approach. Economic, social, and ecological objectives must be developed simultaneously. In Brainport, this means not only investing in cleanrooms, chips, and AI, but also making equally structural investments in education, health, affordable housing, social cohesion, and quality of life.

Without that balance, the researchers warn, rapid growth can actually undermine public support for innovation. Polarization, inequality, and pressure on public services then become not side effects, but structural risks.

Regions matter, especially here

The paper emphasizes that broad prosperity is primarily manifested at the regional level. Housing, mobility, education, safety, and inclusion are not experienced in Brussels or The Hague, but in neighborhoods and municipalities. This makes Brainport not only a technological ecosystem, but also a social and governance challenge.

Tilburg University, therefore, argues that Brainport should function not only as an economic engine but also as a learning region, a place where explicit experimentation takes place to connect high-tech with high-touch. Technology policy as a lever for social progress, not an end in itself.

That requires a broader ecosystem. Not only governments, businesses, and knowledge institutions, but also civil society organizations, trade unions, and citizens must be involved structurally. The familiar triple helix must become a multiple helix.

More than another ASML

One of the sharpest questions in the paper goes to the heart of the Brainport debate: why is there an Operation Beethoven for industrial scale-up, but no comparable “social innovation factory” for education, healthcare, and social cohesion?

If Brainport truly wants to serve as a model for Europe’s future, the authors argue, the region must demonstrate how technological excellence can go hand in hand with social inclusion and ecological sustainability. That requires different priorities, different indicators, and different forms of governance.

Mentor region or warning sign?

Tilburg University is clear: Brainport has the potential to become a mentor region for other European areas, but only if it explicitly learns from its own blind spots.

The conclusion is not a rejection of the Brainport model, but a refinement of it. World-class technology is a necessary condition for future prosperity, but it is not sufficient. The real test for Brainport lies not only in nanometers and revenue figures, but in whether everyone can keep up.

Or, as the position paper succinctly puts it: a World Class Industry can only exist sustainably within a World Class Society.