History

In March 2009, stakeholders from the Windsor-Essex region formed a steering committee to begin exploring opportunities for enhancing regional health research capacity. This multi-stakeholder committee engaged a firm to assess the feasibility of establishing a health research institute. The study defined Windsor’s key advantages and strengths in health research, and assessed existing research capacity and needs to support growth and expansion. The study concluded that there was a significant appetite and unexploited opportunity for a collaborative and integrative health research enterprise in Windsor-Essex.

The report recommended:

• Expanding health research with translational components that bring the latest, most cutting-edge clinical research, health care devices, diagnostics and treatments to patients in Windsor-Essex
• Enhancing linkages and interaction among university and clinical researchers, locally and regionally
• A world-class research space that supports integration, collaboration and translation of research and dissemination of knowledge
• Increasing access to state-of-the-art resources dedicated to research, including facilities, equipment and personnel.
• Managing research processes/platforms to support local research initiatives
• Establishing a critical research mass to attract large funding envelopes from government to support the recruitment of high quality researchers, high impact research projects and competitive research infrastructure
• Strengthening the local economy through diversification by establishing a research knowledge base in Windsor-Essex

Following a series of regional visioning days and consultations spanning a decade, in the Fall of 2018 an Executive Committee was established and tasked with putting plans into action, including creating a proposal for a new health institute. The institute would consist of four partners: The University of Windsor, Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare, St. Clair College, and Windsor Regional Hospital. An application was submitted and was passed by the University of Windsor Senate in May, 2019.