EEFIT Earthquake Mission Grant: Funding for Improved Response and Dissemination

海地最近发生的地震突出表明，地震可能给世界上一些最脆弱的社区造成巨大痛苦。虽然地震工程在减轻这些影响方面发挥着至关重要的作用，但在我们提高建筑标准之前，收集有关当前建筑缺陷的第一手资料绝对至关重要。这项研究将资助英国的学者参加地震工程现场调查小组（EEFIT）进行的地震现场调查。除此之外，它还将通过制定标准化的实地数据收集方法，提高所收集数据的质量及其对其他研究人员的可访问性。该补助金将持续五年，在此期间，我们将进行五次实地调查。每项调查将由一个约6至8人的团队组成，其中两人将是英国学者，最多两名博士生和四名来自行业。他们将在实地观察和收集数据约7天。他们返回后，将对这些数据进行分析，并将分析结果分发给研究人员、专业工程师和广大社区。这笔资金将使实地调查得以迅速部署，并有可能进行纵向研究，以评估灾难性事件后的恢复情况。该赠款还将为与部署地震现场任务的国际伙伴机构（即EERI和GNS）举行的会议提供资金，以便商定和制定标准化的现场使命协议和数据收集表格和工具。

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.