‘TU/e is the beating heart of Brainport’

Needless to say, President of the Executive Board Robert-Jan Smits is a strong supporter of TU/e's collaboration with industrial partners. "We owe our existence to this because the university was founded 67 years ago by the industry of Eindhoven. We have continued to work closely with high-tech companies over those years; it's in our genes and we're good at it. A lot of universities are jealous of that. From my time in Brussels, I remember that everyone wanted to go to Eindhoven to unravel the 'secret of Brainport'."

Unique in collaboration

Smits sees this collaboration as TU/e's unique selling point. "If you want to attract top talent or enter into partnerships, it is important to have a clear signature - something we are unique in. With increasing competition worldwide to attract the best people, this is more important than ever."

For TU/e, this is undeniably the intensive collaboration with parties from the high-tech industry, such as ASML, NXP, Signify, Philips, VDL, Sioux, DAF Trucks, AccTec, Neways, ProDrive, Vanderlande and many other companies from the Brainport region.