One border region from Eindhoven to the Kempen and Belgian Limburg
The region around Eindhoven is growing rapidly. Just across the border lie the Antwerp Kempen and Belgian Limburg, with knowledge, entrepreneurship and manufacturing industry that connect directly to it. On Monday, 14 September 2026, 192 entrepreneurs, knowledge institutions and public authorities from the Netherlands and Flanders came together in Turnhout to make that collaboration concrete. Tumag was there, just a few kilometres from our own production floor.
From charter to concrete projects
This was the second round-table conference on cross-border collaboration between Flanders and Brainport Eindhoven, the technology region around Eindhoven with a strong concentration of high-tech companies, suppliers and knowledge institutions. The day built on the cooperation charter that was signed earlier this year. This time, the focus was on the next step: how do you turn a shared ambition into collaboration that truly works?
This took place across four themes: high-tech, smart & clean mobility, circular construction and biobased materials, and life sciences. For each theme, companies and researchers explored new projects and research initiatives, and found new partners on both sides of the border.
Accessibility as a prerequisite
Om als één regio te kunnen werken, zijn verbindingen nodig die niet ophouden aan de grens. Daarom kwamen ook bereikbaarheid en openbaar vervoer uitdrukkelijk aan bod. Steeds meer mensen wonen, werken en ondernemen aan weerszijden van de grens, en de infrastructuur moet dat kunnen volgen.
Steun van bestuur en kennisinstellingen
The public administrators also supported that ambition. Host Hannes Anaf, mayor of Turnhout, and Jeroen Dijsselbloem, mayor of Eindhoven and chair of the Eindhoven Metropolitan Region and Stichting Brainport, pointed to the opportunities that arise when the border region works more closely together. In her keynote, Silvia Lenaerts, rector magnificus of TU Eindhoven, emphasised the importance of collaboration between knowledge institutions, companies and public authorities for the region’s future innovative strength. The Open Manufacturing Campus in Turnhout welcomed the participants.
What this means for Tumag
For us, the border has long since ceased to be a barrier. From Turnhout, we supply precision components, moulds and engineering to customers in Belgium and the Netherlands, and Eindhoven is less than an hour’s drive away. For a Dutch client, an on-site meeting is therefore just as easy to arrange as with a supplier in their own country.
Many of these clients develop products that require high precision and short communication lines, exactly the themes discussed at the round table. When companies, researchers and public authorities can find each other more easily, the path from idea to product becomes shorter.
We look forward to the next steps and to the projects that will grow out of this day. Would you like to know what we can do together, across the border? Please feel free to contact us.
