The rapidly evolving and progressing nature of the present COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted several critical limitations in the traditional model of surgical research; namely, the inability to provide timely evidence to rapidly inform and change clinical practice, thus ultimately defeating its main purpose of improving patient outcomes. The key question remains the same; ‘how do we deliver the best possible care for our patients?’ What has changed however is that the novel context of a rapidly evolving pandemic which necessitates speed in dissemination and clinical implementation. The traditional approach to surgical research must evolve to cater for (1) iterative learning, (2) novel dissemination methods, (3) rapid data generation and (4) industry collaboration in order to meet the current pandemic challenge.