Governance

In 2005, the Government of Quebec made the decision to locate at the centre of the downtown core of Montreal the new University of Montreal Hospital Centre (CHUM), an ultramodern 700-bed university hospital intended for teaching of highly specialized care, research, technological assessment and health promotion. This new hospital is equiped with the most important health research centre in Quebec which brings together the research personnel and resources now located in six separate research centres.

Our partners

Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (University of Montreal Hospital Centre)

Centre hospitalier Sainte-Justine (Sainte-Justine Hospital centre)

History

As a function of the immense economic development, social and urban potential that results from this concentration of clinical, research and technological expertise, CHUM mandated a working group to establish the mission, objectives, components and activities of this new technological hub.

In June 2006, this working group recommended forming a non-profit corporation that would bring together both public and private health care institutions. The mandate of this organization is to capitalize on the potential to develop CHUM into a world class initiative that will profit Montreal, Quebec and Canada at large. The working group also recommended a feasibility study to assess positioning the Quartier de la santé as an international-level initiative.

In September 2006, the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal, the Université de Montréal and CHUM created the board of directors of the Quartier de la santé de Montréal, under the leadership of board president Pierre Marc Johnson, lawyer, physician and former Premier of Quebec. To the board were recruited the heads of a number of large Montreal institutions as well as representatives from the private sector including CHUM, the Université de Montréal, the Université du Québec à Montréal, the Sainte-Justine Hospital Centre, The Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal and Bell Canada.

The board of directors, with the financial support of the City of Montreal, the Ville-Marie Borough, the Quebec Ministry of Economic Development, Innovation, and Export and Economic Development Canada, mandated an international consulting firm to study the potential of developing an international-scale Quartier de la santé. Concurrently, the Quartier de la santé team proceeded with initiatives to attract institutional and private sector development to the site.

The international consultants compared the Quartier de la santé project against 40 similar projects and met with more than 150 scientists, academics, real estate developers, health care companies, two thirds of which were outside the country. Their study concluded that there was a potential for a first phase development of 40 thousand square metres, to be developed over five years, combining in equal parts industrial and institutional public health care space.

To develop the project, the Quartier de la santé entered into a partnership with Technoparc Montréal, a non-profit organization founded in 1993 which has developed more than 170 thousand square metres of high tech space, financed through partnerships with Desjardins sécurité financière and SOLIM/Solidarity Fund QFL.