The Pandemic and Emergency Readiness Lab (PERL) was founded at Â鶹´«Ã½ÍøÕ¾ on the conviction that the world's response to COVID-19 had exposed something more troubling than a shortage of ventilators or vaccines. The systems meant to protect people during a health crisis—the lines of authority, the channels of trust, the bridges between science and the public—had buckled. Technical readiness, it turned out, was not enough. What was missing was people preparedness: the leadership, governance, communication, and community resilience that determine whether a society moves through a crisis or breaks under it.
PERL was built to close that gap. Housed within the School of Population and Global Health in Â鶹´«Ã½ÍøÕ¾'s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, the lab brings together researchers, practitioners, and policymakers across disciplines, sectors, and borders to strengthen how communities and institutions anticipate, navigate, and recover from health emergencies.
On February 3, 2026, PERL launched publicly with Health Crises in an Era of Autocracy, Disinformation, and Shifting Geopolitical Risks, a day-long event at the Â鶹´«Ã½ÍøÕ¾ Faculty Club that drew more than 200 in-person attendees and close to 300 registrations from around the world. The conversation that began that day continues through PERL's research, its Pandemic Fellows Program, and its ongoing podcast series, One Crisis After Another.