The VCH and UBC research community came together at the VCHRI Research Summit 2025 to celebrate research excellence driving meaningful advances in patient care.
On June 2, 2025, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute (VCHRI) hosted a landmark summit to recognize outstanding research achievements, showcase innovations that have had a major impact on health care and create opportunities to network and share research findings across our research community. Over 300 researchers, clinicians, trainees, staff, community partners and research collaborators gathered at the event to celebrate research excellence at VCHRI.
The premier summit: Shaping the Future of Health Care through Research, featured an expert lineup of presentations and panel discussions covering a wide range of topics, including leveraging technology, such as AI, advancing clinical trials to improve outcomes and promoting health equity. World-renowned scientists shared their latest research findings and insights, highlighting the multidisciplinary approach to research at VCHRI.
The event also featured a Partner Showcase of booths presented by VCHRI’s research centres and partners, highlighting the latest innovative solutions and research that are advancing patient outcomes. Attendees learned about a variety of supports and services offered to researchers in the VCHRI community and had the opportunity to demo various novel technologies that have the potential to revolutionize health care delivery.
Attendees also had the opportunity to connect and engage with their colleagues during the networking portion of the event. A diverse audience of researchers, industry leaders and health care professionals from a variety of disciplines exchanged ideas and resources to help forge future collaborations and partnerships.
The high attendance and positive response to this event demonstrated the strong commitment of the research community to improving patient care through innovative research. The success of the event was a testament to VCHRI's commitment to integrating research and health care. It created awareness about the services and resources available to support researchers and staff at VCH.
Working together to navigate the future of health care
This year’s event featured a variety of timely topics that addressed the need to come together to navigate the current political climate and prioritize the health and well-being of VCHRI’s communities.
A panel discussion moderated by VCHRI’s Indigenous Health Research Unit director Dr. Gabrielle Legault brought together an outstanding lineup of experts to speak to the importance of advancing health equity through research, including Richard Peter, Dr. Kathleen Deering, Dr. Danya Fast and Dr. Farah Shroff.
Legault guided the discussion through various key issues surrounding health equity, including the meaning of true inclusion beyond tokenism, the importance of co-creating approaches that are grounded in community-defined priorities and the need for intersectional research that recognizes layers of identity. Panelists also addressed how recent shifts in U.S. policies have had a ripple effect across the research landscape in Canada and beyond, specifically in terms of the health equity research community.
The keynote session of the day showcased research innovations for improved patient care. Life Sciences BC CEO Wendy Hurlburt moderated this engaging discussion, which featured an impressive panel of health care and industry leaders including Ian Rongve, Anne Stevens, Dr. Danielle Lavallee, Dr. Peter Zandstra and Dr. Teresa Tsang.
In this session, various perspectives were shared from industry, academia, government and health care that highlighted opportunities across the health system to move research discoveries into care settings. Topics covered the recruitment of talent to B.C. through collaborations to fund clinical trials pathways, investments in infrastructure to solidify B.C.’s position as a research leader on the world stage and technical training and early research programs.
“VCHRI is uniquely positioned to lead the next phase of transformative health research,” says Dr. Teresa Tsang, executive director of VCHRI. “By harnessing cutting-edge technologies such as AI and data-driven approaches, and by forging partnerships across academia and the health system, we are accelerating discovery and driving innovation.”
“This summit underscored the strength of our research community — shaping the future with rigour, collaboration and an unwavering commitment to improving patient outcomes, advancing health equity and driving research for social good.”
VCHRI sincerely thanks VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation, Michael Smith Health Research BC, BC Regenerative Medicine Initiative, Genome British Columbia, Bristol Myers Squibb and UBC Data Science and Health (DASH) Cluster for their partnership and support of VCHRI Research Summit 2025: Shaping the Future of Health Care through Research. Their commitment played a vital role in making this event a success.
