  Almost two decades after the establishment of the Joint Institute for VLBI in
Europe (JIVE), the European VLBI Network is a thriving scientific
infrastructure with a significant user community and a healthy proposal
pressure. It offers opportunities to address a breadth of important scientific
topics, which feature in national and European astronomy roadmaps. Most of
these science themes call for further enhancements of the sensitivity and image
quality delivered by VLBI networks. The exceptional progress of e-VLBI over the
last five years demonstrates how sensitive VLBI should be done in the future.
At the same time JIVE is pushing the technology for large capacity correlators
that can connect VLBI networks with many elements in real-time. Indeed, many
new initiatives to build or outfit telescopes for VLBI are emerging from around
the world. The technological VLBI developments have a great synergy with the
SKA preparations. This is recognized in the SKA pathfinder role that e-VLBI has
in the European VLBI Network for exploring connectivity and real-time science
techniques. Moreover, VLBI with its locally visible elements offers great
possibilities for training and outreach. With the new scientific capabilities,
especially those complementary to other SKA pathfinders, VLBI will be a
flourishing scientific instrument for the future.
