Brien Holden Vision Institute is a non-profit global scientific, research, innovation, education, licensing and public health organization dedicated to providing creative and advanced solutions to ensure the provision of excellent vision for everyone, everywhere.

The Institute's mission includes developing solutions for vision care, especially refractive error and early disease detection, and to eliminate vision impairment and avoidable blindness, thereby raising the quality of life for all people, and helping to reduce disability and poverty for those in need.

The Institute is a social enterprise, investing the revenues from its work into creating scientific solutions and developing and delivering eye care and education programs around the world.

Brien Holden Vision companies are dedicated to bringing excellent, affordable products to market that will improve eye care and generate resources to help the Institute's mission.

History

Following the completion of his optometry training at Melbourne University in 1964, Brien Holden embarked on an impactful journey by boat to the UK with his new wife. Seeing the poverty and hardship at several port stops along the way stimulated a lifelong interest in humanitarian pursuits and social justice.

After completing his PhD in corneal and contact lens research in the United Kingdom at the City University London in 1971, Brien returned to Australia to take up a position as Lecturer at the University of New South Wales Australia (UNSW) in Sydney. This proved to be an incredibly fertile research and educational environment in the early 1970s.
It was here that a group led by Brien Holden began to quickly develop expertise in soft contact lenses. Brien's influence was not only felt in contact lens studies and research, but also in teaching diagnostic drugs. His UK qualifications enabled him to be both the first person to be registered in optometry to use diagnostic drugs and the first teacher of the subject in Australia.

In 1973, Brien and several postgraduate students began research to determine what was needed in contact lenses to maintain eye health. This group managed to attract the interest of other researchers to work with them, expanding beyond the original goal of understanding the effects of contact lenses on the cornea to include all aspects of contact lenses – from lens design, material properties and performance to the effects of a wide range of ocular devices, procedures and contact lens solutions on the eye.