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UCLA Health Innovation Challenge

UCLA Health

Last reviewed August 30, 2026

Intelligence summary

Program at a Glance

Program mandate
The UCLA Health Innovation Challenge is an annual competition run by the UCLA Health Office of Innovation that invites faculty, staff, trainees, students, patients, caregivers, volunteers and community members to submit ideas that advance care delivery and health equity. It runs three tracks: Scale Health Equity, which funds projects up to $50,000 and requires a UCLA Health faculty member, at least one UCLA Health RN or staff member and a community partner organization; Invent HealthTech, also up to $50,000, for early-stage medical devices, diagnostics, digital therapeutics and software, requiring a UCLA Health faculty member plus an RN or a faculty member from another UCLA school; and an open Submit Your Greatest Idea track.
Organizational model
Nonprofit
Location
Los Angeles, California
Program types
EntrepreneurshipPhysician innovationNursing innovation
Commercialization pathways
Strategic partnership
Focus areas
ClinicalMedical deviceTherapeuticsDiagnosticsDigitalWorkforce
Public scale or maturity signals

Documented successes: Ran as the fifth annual Innovation Challenge in 2025; Awards up to $50,000 per project in both the Scale Health Equity and Invent HealthTech tracks; Requires interprofessional teams that pair UCLA Health faculty with UCLA Health nurses or staff and, for the equity track, a community partner organization

Official engagement route
Program website ↗Health system website ↗
Last reviewed
August 30, 2026

Mandate and remit

What This Program Does

The UCLA Health Innovation Challenge is an annual competition run by the UCLA Health Office of Innovation that invites faculty, staff, trainees, students, patients, caregivers, volunteers and community members to submit ideas that advance care delivery and health equity. It runs three tracks: Scale Health Equity, which funds projects up to $50,000 and requires a UCLA Health faculty member, at least one UCLA Health RN or staff member and a community partner organization; Invent HealthTech, also up to $50,000, for early-stage medical devices, diagnostics, digital therapeutics and software, requiring a UCLA Health faculty member plus an RN or a faculty member from another UCLA school; and an open Submit Your Greatest Idea track. The requirement that clinical teams include nurses alongside physician faculty makes it an explicitly interprofessional innovation pathway. Winning teams then plug into the Office of Innovation's wider ecosystem, which includes the UCLA Biodesign Fellowship, Biodesign Accelerator Fellows, the NSF I-Corps Innovation Node Los Angeles and external accelerator partners. The 2025 cycle was the fifth annual challenge.

Areas of Focus

ClinicalMedical deviceTherapeuticsDiagnosticsDigitalWorkforce

Commercialization Pathways

These routes appear in the program's sourced public record.

Strategic partnership

Publicly Reported Outcomes

  • Documented successes

    Ran as the fifth annual Innovation Challenge in 2025; Awards up to $50,000 per project in both the Scale Health Equity and Invent HealthTech tracks; Requires interprofessional teams that pair UCLA Health faculty with UCLA Health nurses or staff and, for the equity track, a community partner organization

Contact the Program

Use the program's published contact route for partnership, licensing, innovation, or program inquiries.

Official contact page
Open contact page ↗

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Sources and Updates

Reviewed August 30, 2026. External source links open in a new tab.

  1. UCLA Health Innovation Challenge official source ↗ — uclahealth.org. Accessed August 30, 2026.
  2. UCLA Health Innovation Challenge source 2 ↗ — uclahealth.org. Accessed August 30, 2026.

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