Brainport Development

Brainport Development is the economic development organisation of Brainport Eindhoven, a region of 21 municipalities and about 800,000 residents built around high-tech industry. It brings companies, knowledge institutions and governments together to keep the region at the front of technology, and it treats zero-emission energy and transport as one of the region's own challenges.

Its Green & Smart Mobility programme office shows what that means in practice: the Green Transport Delta for electric and hydrogen transport, Charging Energy Hubs, a proving region for connected and automated driving, and the Battery Competence Cluster NL. Through the Regio Deal Brainport Eindhoven (2018-2025), the national government, the province and the region invested 479 million euros in 26 regional projects.

In NEON, Brainport Development was one of five network partners, chosen to carry NEON's results to the SMEs and manufacturers in its network, across Brabant, the Netherlands and Europe. Through the Brainport Smart Mobility programme it also supported NEON's research on smart hubs and mobility as a service. That line produced Pim Labee's PhD thesis on activity-based travel models, defended in September 2025.

The connection also worked the other way. At the 2024 Brainport Mobility Xperience, a NEON PhD candidate ran a game in which visitors played rival incumbents who had to pool their money to electrify trucks.