Our Mission
The Western Institute for Veterans Research is a nonprofit corporation that facilitates research and educational programs within the VA Salt Lake City Health Care System by working with a variety of public and private funding partners to improve the health and well-being of Veterans
WIVR is proud to support the Advancement of VA Research and Education.
As an affiliated Non-profit Corporation (NPC) with the VA SLC Health Care System, WIVR also fully supports the VA’s Research mission, which is fourfold:
- to improve Veterans' health and well-being via basic, translational, clinical, health services, and rehabilitative research;
- to apply scientific knowledge to develop effective individualized care solutions for Veterans;
- to attract, train, and retain the highest-caliber investigators, and nurture their development as leaders in their fields; and
- to assure a culture of professionalism, collaboration, accountability, and the highest regard for research volunteers' safety and privacy.
Who We Are
In 1988 Congress passed Public Law 100-322 (now codified at section 7361-66 of title 38, United States Code) that allowed Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical centers to establish nonprofit research corporations (NPCs), forming a unique public/private partnership that dramatically broadened VA’s ability to benefit from private and non-VA public support for research conducted at VA medical centers.
The Western Institute for Veterans Research (WIVR) is non-profit organization, established in 1989 to facilitate and manage funding partnerships between private and non-VA funding sources and the VA Salt Lake City Health Care System. Initially, WIVR was incorporated under the name of the Western Institute for Biomedical Research. To better reflect its mission, the name was changed to the Western Institute for Veterans Research in 2020. WIVR is located on-site, and only supports research and education activities approved by VASLCHCS.
For over 30 years WIVR has facilitated funding partnerships that have led to research discoveries and treatments that have benefitted both our Veterans and our communities. Currently WIVR has Investigators engaged in COVID-19 clinical trials to understand the effects of the virus on Veterans with cancer and various treatment options, with outside industry funding partner support.
WIVR works with many of the Salt Lake City VA’s 160+ Principal Investigators, who are either clinician scientists (time is divided between patient care and research) or full-time research scientists. These researchers have appointments at VASLCHCS, and most also hold faculty appointments at the University of Utah. We strive to provide superior administrative service and support for the research and educational programs championed by our Principal Investigators and proudly maintain an extremely low-cost structure. This means that more outside research dollars stay in the labs and facilities where important Veterans health research is being conducted.