About us
We're an independent not-for-profit built inside the health system, helping health-tech innovators cross the gap from a bright idea to everyday care.
Our origin
Born from a need to innovate in healthcare
Founded at the CHEO Research Institute, CORE Innovation was created to address one of healthcare's biggest challenges, to help promising innovations move beyond research and into real-world use.
Today, as an independent not-for-profit organization working in collaboration with CHEO, the CHEO Research Institute and partners across Canada, CORE Innovation connects business, research and healthcare to accelerate innovation from invention through adoption.
Our purpose
Foster a collaborative and productive innovation ecosystem at the intersection of business, research and healthcare.
CORE Innovation transforms research and clinical insight into commercial products, Ontario jobs and better patient outcomes. We operate from inside the health system, bridging the gap between brilliant research and everyday care.1
Why three communities
Each community speaks its own language.
Business, research and healthcare look at the same innovation and see three different things: a market, a question, a risk to a patient. None of them can see the whole path from where it stands, and an idea that satisfies only one stalls at the border of the next. That is why the model has three overlapping spheres rather than one, and why crossing the pathway means turning it to see the gap from each side in turn.
“You’ve got to have multiple models. And the models have to come from multiple disciplines because all the wisdom of the world is not to be found in one little academic department.”
The C.O.R.E. principles
Layered over everything we do
The speed, clarity and expertise we promise come from four principles, one for each letter of CORE. Resources is the missing one, and the hardest for companies to supply themselves.
Complexity reduction
We strip the maze down to a path, one step at a time, in the right order.
Operational speed
Fast ethics, fast pilots, fast decisions. Momentum is oxygen for innovation.
Resources
Funding, facilities, data and networks, allocated when each step needs them.
Expertise
Clinicians, researchers, operators and founders who have walked the path before.
Our foundational values
What we value
No one crosses alone
Between invention and adoption lies a gap where most ideas stall. We don't hand you a map and wish you luck. We cross it with you, at every stage.
Built inside the system
We work from within health care, so innovators reach real clinicians, patients and procurement, the environment care actually happens in, not a sandbox.
Evidence the system trusts
We hold ideas to the standard health care buys on: validated, peer-reviewed, procurement-ready. Credibility is earned, not asserted.
Momentum over motion
Good ideas stall when no one owns the next step. We measure ourselves by how fast innovations move toward adoption, not by how busy we look.
Who we are
An independent not-for-profit
CORE Innovation Corp. is an independent not-for-profit corporation incorporated under the Ontario Not-for-Profit Corporations Act on March 27, 2026. It grew out of the health-innovation work pioneered at CHEO and across the Eastern Ontario health system, was established and scaled at the CHEO Research Institute, and now operates as its own organization, serving innovators across all populations by connecting them with clinical expertise, patient access and real-world care environments.
Independent institutions in our network
CHEO & CHEO Research Institute
Where CORE began. Pediatric acute-care leader: 6,700 admissions, 75,000 emergency visits and 3,200+ staff each year.
Carleton University
Biomedical engineering, sensor applications, smart environments and aging-in-place technology.
Bruyère Research Institute
AgeTech, virtual rehabilitation and hospital-to-home transitions for older adults.
University of Ottawa
Faculty of Health Sciences: 120+ researchers across five academic units.
Regional reach
The 8-80 Collaborative
The 8-80 Collaborative began as a partnership between the CHEO Research Institute and Bruyère Health, named for care that runs from eight seconds to more than eighty years of age. It is now expanding into a regional innovation partnership with hospitals and care providers across Eastern Ontario. Through it, CORE Innovation sources promising health technologies, filters them for clinical readiness and validates them in real care settings, reducing risk at every step of the pathway.
Regional innovation partnership
Acknowledgements
The 8-80 Collaborative is funded by the Government of Canada through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario).
Collaborating organizations
Who we work with
Beyond our regional innovation partnership, CORE Innovation collaborates with universities, innovation organizations and investors across Eastern Ontario and nationally. Together we connect health technology companies with research expertise, capital and the markets they need to grow.
Academic, ecosystem and national organizations
SAIL Ventures
Our people
Meet the team
Clinicians, operators, researchers and builders, the team that walks every company down the pathway.
Governance
Board of Directors
An independent board governs CORE Innovation. The inaugural board was constituted in May 2026, with vision, mission and strategy adopted in June 2026.
Meet the board →Work with us
Building something? Submit your innovation. Funding, adopting or partnering? Email us and we'll take it from there.