Following an agreement between the Japan Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and the US National Science Foundation (NSF), the First Planning Meeting for NEES/E-Defense Collaboration on Earthquake Engineering Research was held in 2004. This meeting laid the groundwork for a five-year joint research program related to improving understanding and reducing the seismic vulnerability of bridges and steel buildings. To formalize the collaboration, two Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) were executed, one between NSF and MEXT in September 2005 and one between the NEES Consortium Inc. (NEES Inc.) and the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (NIED) of Japan in July 2005. These MOUs cover collaborative activities through 2010.
A joint US-Japan planning meeting was held on January 12 and 13, 2009 in Arlington, Virginia, USA to discuss the need for and benefits of continued NEES/E-Defense collaboration. This small meeting identified a number of important topics of mutual interest to the US and Japan that would benefit from continued research collaboration and sharing of NEES and E-Defense resources. A follow-up meeting to discuss details of this future phase of collaboration was recommended.
The Seventh Planning Meeting was convened during September 17 and 18, 2009, to review the efforts and accomplishments of the past four and half years and to discuss continued and hopefully stronger collaboration for the coming years. The meeting, organized by NSF and the NEES Inc. in the U.S. and MEXT and NIED in Japan, was attended by leading researchers from both countries as well as representatives from NSF, MEXT and other government agencies. Overall, twenty-nine participants attended the meeting from Japan and thirty-two participants were from the U.S.
This report contains a summary of the meeting along with the recommendations and resolutions reached by the participants. Several appendices contain the list of participants, the meeting agenda and schedule, the materials presented during the plenary and breakout sessions, and a report that summarizes the recommendations delivered by individual breakout sessions where participants discussed in detail various scientific and engineering challenges that should be addressed during the upcoming NEES/E-Defense collaboration.
Full List of PEER Reports: click here.
