EEFIT Earthquake Mission Grant: Funding for Improved Response and Dissemination

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The recent earthquake in Haiti highlights the tremendous suffering that earthquakes can inflict on some of the world's most vulnerable communities. While the role of earthquake engineering is of paramount importance in mitigating these effects, before we can improve our building standards it is absolutely crucial to gather first hand information on current building deficiencies. This research will fund UK based academics to participate in earthquake field investigations conducted by the Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team (EEFIT). in addition to this it will also enhance the quality of the data collected and its accessability to other researchers bydeveloping standardised field data collection methods. The grant will lasts for five years and in this time we will conduct five field investigations. Each investigation will comprise of a team of approximately six to eight people, two of whom will be UK academics and up to two PhD students and four from industry. They will spend approximately 7 days in the field making observations and collecting data. On their return, this data will be analysed and the findings disseminated to researchers, professional engineers and the community at large. This funding will allow rapid deployment of field investigations and the possibility to carry out longitudinal studies to assess recovery from catastrophic events. The grant will also provide funding for meetings with International partner institutions that deploy earthquake field missions (namely EERI, and GNS) in order to agree and develop standardised field mission protocols and data collection forms and tools.