 Social innovation is everywhere. It's a fashionable notion, a catch-all concept. It's everything, and so perhaps it's nothing. There is often a lack of direction at the beginning of a large movement. And, as inspiration, we use terms that acquire a clearer meaning later on. Social innovation is not there yet. Now, we describe it as a wide range of different components. It's about renewal. Renewal in methods, processes, and structures of production and consumption between people and organizations. Where the most important service domains of society are healthcare, work, and sustainable development. The welfare state was an impressive invention. However, it has now come to an end. The unintended effects of noble schemes have led to crisis. Now, we must rearrange those schemes. The technological potential to offer better healthcare, to give and continue to give people a dignified life, requires urgent cooperation between entrepreneurs, scientists, citizens, and governments. Brabant is a special region, an impressive conglomerate of technological development and renewal, home to a number of blossoming centres of expertise that focus on social science, like Tilburg University. And in other areas of Brabant, a DNA that lends itself to cooperative movements, to self-direction, to innovative forms of cooperation. This is what social innovation is about. Today's universities, colleges, and vocational schools are turning to society. They are trying to connect their wealth of knowledge to the need for renewal faced by entrepreneurs, citizens, and governments. This will not happen by itself. And at the same time, the university must continue to strive for excellence in scientific research. A delicate combination. What we perceive is that new patterns of collaboration are emerging and blossoming in numerous ways. And that is giving rise to new words, living labs, breeding grounds, academic workplaces. All of these are places where connections can occur. So being aware of the continuity of change, the certainty that what we achieve will not last, the conviction that it is a human task to find new ways of cooperation and organisation in that vortex of change. This conviction is one that inspires. Not because we are sure that the goal that has been set can be achieved, but because we know that stagnation and lethargy will get us into even more trouble. In other words, social innovation as an effort, as a name, is definitely worthwhile, even if we are in doubt about the continuity of the positive outcome. It is not certain that it will work, but the effort itself is worth it.