What have we learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, and how can we be better prepared for the next global outbreak? This workshop brings together collaborative teams of modellers, statisticians, epidemiologists, genomics experts, public health decision-makers, and those implementing and delivering interventions who have been working together in a research network, aiming to increase Canada’s capacity for data-driven emerging infectious disease modelling to directly support future public health decisions. This BIRS meeting is an important opportunity for network members and collaborators to share the outcomes of their research over the two years since the network was launched with funding from the federal government. The questions being tackled at this workshop are grounded in public health needs and generated in partnership between research investigators and knowledge users – public health leaders, health administrators and policy-makers.