Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	EP/F012179/1
Title:	EPICENTRE - Earthquake and People Interaction Centre
Principal Investigator:	Rossetto, Professor T
Other Investigators:	Joffe, Professor H
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department:	Civil Environmental and Geomatic Eng
Organisation:	UCL
Scheme:	Standard Research
Starts:	01 July 2007	Ends:	30 June 2012	Value (£):	895,596
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Coastal & Waterway Engineering Construction Ops & Management
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	Construction Environment
Related Grants:
Panel History:	Panel Date Panel Name Outcome 15 May 2007 Challenging Engineering Interview Panel Announced 03 Apr 2007 Challenging Engineering Sift Panel Deferred
Summary on Grant Application Form
Earthquake risk is composed of three elements: Hazard, Vulnerability and Exposure. Good understanding, representation and modelling of all three elements are necessary in order to produce useful and reliable human and economic loss estimates. Governments require such estimates to make decisions as to if and how to intervene to mitigate potential earthquake induced losses, and where to locate critical facilities or emergency resources to ensure effective post-disaster relief and recovery. However, existing loss estimation methodologies limit their scope of hazard assessment to ground shaking effects, adopt unreliable models of building damage and vulnerability that are practically disregarded in the estimation of human losses for which only coarse estimation tools exist. Shortly after arriving at UCL the PI began to set up a new concept in earthquake engineering research in which the importance of vulnerability of people in such disasters was included in the engineering consideration of the problem. Through interactions with government, industry, NGOs and other academics this has become tangible in the form of the highly multidisciplinary Earthquake and People Interaction Centre (EPICENTRE). The Centre has developed its own specialised MSc course (due to start in September 2007) and this proposal is designed to provide the seed funding for a number of initiating studies to inspire the research side of the Centre's activities. The Challenging Engineering funding will enable the applicant to bring together a multidisciplinary group of researchers (earthquake engineers, social scientists, coastal engineers and statisticians) to address gaps in knowledge in each of the components of the 'normal' risk equation with the aim of extending the scope of its application of this equation and providing decision makers with better guidance for where and how to invest to mitigate earthquake losses. In particular three research topics will be addressed: violent flow (tsunami) loss prediction, human loss estimation in earthquakes and building seismic damage assessment. These initial studies will form the core of the early research development of the Centre and provide a starting focus to enable it to thrive through further funding initiatives. At the end of the Challenging Engineering funding the Centre will be a research-intensive actively-disseminating centre of excellence in the UK for twenty-first century earthquake engineering.
Key Findings
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
Potential use in non-academic contexts
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
Impacts
Description This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk Summary Date Materialised
Sectors submitted by the Researcher
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
Project URL:	http://www.epicentreonline.com
Further Information:
Organisation Website: