ABSTRACT
Funding is not always essential for performing good and relevant research, but it helps. Funding frees additional time and resources, as well as co-production and co-creational processes that may not be available to individual researchers alone but may grow from larger research collaboration. In 2019, we were both involved in an application for funding of the development of a Critical Pandemic Response (CPR) exercise. The aim was to improve multinational preparedness, cooperation, collaboration and response to the possible spread of public health risks and test a validated exercise model. The case was a pandemic. At the last minute, we were unable to apply due to unexpected causes. Little did we know how spot on our initiative was back then with the COVID-19 outbreak in December 2019. Copyright © 2020 Author(s).