On 1 January 2013, it will be twenty years since Epidemic Models started as a 6-month programme in the first year of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences. Since then, the field has grown enormously, in topics addressed, methods and data available (e.g. genetics/genomics, immunological data, social, contact, spatial, and movement data were hardly available at the time). Apart from these advances, there has also been an increase in the need for these approaches because we have seen the emergence and re-emergence of infectious agents worldwide, and the complexity and...