Rebuilding research and innovation at the heart of university-hospitals

The University-hospitals have a triple mission of care, teaching and research. The latter has a preponderant place because it makes it possible to offer patients advanced care adapted to all diseases, and it is the guarantee of high-level training for future physicians and nursing staff. The evolution of the scientific, technological, social and cultural bases of medicine justify an overhaul of university medicine for which the Covid-19 crisis has revealed the need. Indeed, the evolution of the university-hospitals has gradually moved away from the founding principles that had shown their effectiveness by offering patients high-level care. Faced with this observation, a symposium brought together more than a hundred of decision makers from the scientific, economic and political world, representatives of ministries and members of the Parliament. The objectives of the symposium included making a state of research and innovation in health; producing recommendations on the necessary overhaul of university hospitals and their place in a simplified organization of research in biology and health; and identifying the points that will need in-depth analyses.