As hospitals became centres for health care, they also became centres for health research. The hospital provides researchers with: research space (labs), research subjects (patients for clinical trials), and, of course, research problems—for often research is driven by a real problem encountered by doctors and patients.

The Montreal Neurological Institute, founded by Dr. Wilder Penfield in 1933, was an early example of combining treatment of patients and research into their conditions in the same institution.